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Defense company Anduril Industries has introduced Seabed Sentry, a mobile sensor network for monitoring military and commercial deep-sea activity amid tensions with Russia and China.
Separately, the company is making a new torpedo line called Copperhead, named after the venomous snake, that can be launched by underwater drones.
The two systems help to build out the Costa Mesa-based company’s push for weapons and defense systems covering the full spectrum of air, land and sea.
Anduril’s product line already includes airborne drones and unmanned submarines, and it is working on a potentially $22 billion program for U.S. Army battlefield goggles.
The company is aiming to revamp the way the Pentagon procures weapons systems and overhaul the way they are used in potential battles. It’s combining artificial intelligence with off-the-shelf components to build state-of-the-art weaponry. And rather than waiting for the Pentagon to order a product, it’s making the product that it is betting the Pentagon will want.
Anduril is challenging such behemoths as Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), RTX Corp. (NYSE: RTX, formerly Raytheon) and Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC).
The defense company, which last year was valued at $14 billion, was co-founded in 2017 by Palmer Luckey and Brian Schimpf, named as Businesspeople of the Year in January by the Business Journal. It has been shooting for a $28 billion valuation, while there has been speculation it may be ripe for a public company listing.
Its fast growth, which reached an estimated $1 billion in sales last year, is evident on its website where it’s advertising 792 jobs as of April 7.
Anti-Submarine Warfare
The company says the uses for Seabed Sentry, introduced on April 3, include “anti-submarine warfare.”
Defense sector news site TWZ (The War Zone) said “expanding fleets of quieter and otherwise more modern submarines, especially in Russia and China, as well as growing threats to critical undersea infrastructure” are driving demand for better undersea monitoring.
In November, the head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Adm. Samuel Paparo, told a security forum in Canada that he anticipates that Russia will be sharing submarine technology with Beijing as the two forces face off against the U.S.
Anduril sees a growing demand for the underwater monitoring system adding: “We are evaluating our rapidly growing production capacity in the U.S. and globally.”
The company says it’s “in active conversations with U.S. and international customers” with production to start “soon.”
The Anduril system uses AI-enabled, mobile undersea sensor nodes networked together for persistent monitoring and real time communication built in a modular format.
“Unlike fixed seafloor surveillance systems – which are expensive to place and maintain – Seabed Sentry is a network of ‘cable-less’ deep-sea nodes that sense, process and communicate critical subsea information at the edge in real time,” Anduril says.
Long-Lasting, Lower Cost
Anduril says the Seabed Sentry system can last for months and even years; it has a depth rating exceeding 500 meters (550 yards).
It is guided by Anduril’s hallmark Lattice AI software.
“Seabed Sentry is designed for re-use: it can be deployed to the seabed, act, then be recovered, cleaned, recharged and re-used, ultimately driving down operational costs and avoiding potential manufacturing and production delays,” Anduril says.
Anduril is constructing a 5-million-square-foot mega-factory outside Columbus, Ohio, and has various production sites elsewhere in the U.S. It is reportedly considering opening a factory in the U.K.
Anduril’s New Torpedo Tops 35 MPH
Anduril Industries says its new torpedoes can be launched by underwater drones.
The company’s new military torpedo comes in two models — the Copperhead-100M and Copperhead-500M — with different payload capacities.
Named after a species of venomous snakes, the Copperheads will deliver “underwater firepower on demand to disable or destroy maritime threats,” Anduril said on April 7.
“Copperhead-100 and Copperhead-500 can reach speeds greater than 30 knots,” Anduril said. Thirty knots is equivalent to about 35 land mph.
The speeds of other types of underwater torpedoes typically can range from about 40 mph to over 200 mph, depending on technology and distance traveled.
Anduril already builds unmanned submarines, such as the Dive-XL, which the company says will be able to carry “dozens” Copperhead-100M or multiple Copperhead-500M weapons.
Officially, Anduril’s newly introduced products are called “Autonomous Underwater Vehicles built for delivery by autonomous systems.” They have “torpedo capability” when fitted with deadly payloads.
Anduril also makes a non-military version of the new underwater vehicles. They are “designed for rapid-response commercial missions like search and rescue, critical infrastructure inspection and environmental monitoring.”
—Kevin Costelloe