BAE Systems, collaborating with Canadian company Cellula Robotics, has successfully demonstrated the Herne extra-large autonomous underwater vehicle (XLAUV) off the south coast of England, the company announced on 25 November 2024.
The Herne XLAUV has been configured by BAE Systems to enable navies to monitor and help protect underwater infrastructure across the vast expanses of the seabed, support anti-submarine warfare operations and undertake covert surveillance missions.
The trials, which took place earlier in November 2024 off the coast in the region of Portsmouth, saw the craft conduct a pre-programmed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission powered by Nautomate: BAE Systems’ platform-agnostic, high-specification autonomous military control system. The technology was successfully trialled on a surface vessel earlier in 2024.
Able to be fitted to existing or new-build vessels, Nautomate gives users a cost-effective option to boost their autonomous capabilities, allowing them to operate with greater scale, endurance and persistence while removing the need for human crews to operate in arduous or dangerous conditions. This can free up skilled personnel to focus on the tasks where they add most value.
An added benefit of underwater autonomy is that, without the need to resupply or carry life support systems, the Herne XLAUV will be able to patrol the subsurface domain for far longer than a crewed submarine.
The Herne can also be upgraded as new technologies or tactics evolve by using open-architecture mission plug-ins.
BAE Systems’ collaboration with Cellula Robotics allowed the Herne XLAUV demonstrator to be delivered from ‘whiteboard to water’ in just 11 months. The Herne is derived from Cellula Robotics 12 m-long Solus-XR XLAUV.
“Herne is a game changer in the underwater battlespace,” Scott Jamieson, managing director of BAE Systems’ Maritime Services business, was quoted as saying in a company press release. “It will give our customers a cost-effective autonomous capability that will allow for a wide range of missions [and] end the reliance on crewed platforms, keeping people out of harm’s way and boosting endurance.”
