Canberra-based L3Harris Technologies Australia has put its hand up for the 2025 AUKUS Maritime Innovation Challenge, Alan Clements, the company’s Chief Executive has confirmed. It hasn’t disclosed the architecture of its bid, but Clements told ADM that the company’s roots in Western Australia through what used to be L3 Nautronix have given it the basis for a credible Australian bid for the Challenge.
“Where we're talking about underwater, we've been leaders in this area for years,” he said. L3 Nautronix was the original developer of the HAIL (Hydro Acoustic Information Link) system which it has constantly modernised and which now operates on Collins-class and US Navy submarines.
“The HAIL capability was transferred to our partner company in the US and that got into the US Navy's combat system, a communication tool for SEALs,” said Clements. “So the US Navy puts divers in the water, and they can text with those divers on their arm pad as they're off doing their mission.
“We aim to push the boundaries of current technology by enhancing capabilities in areas like cybersecurity, APNT [Assured Position, Navigation, and Timing], LPI [Low Probability of Intercept] communications; data analytics; and encryption to create the next-generation integrated undersea network”
Much of the intent of the Maritime Innovation Challenge also matches the intent of the cancelled Project Sea 5012, which aimed to create an Integrated Undersea Surveillance System. It looks as if many of the building blocks of this capability do exist, even though the project itself is defunct.
In 2023 the company won a $328 million contract to deliver and sustain new Maritime Underwater Tracking Ranges (MUTR) for the RAN (and the US Navy) in WA under Project Sea 1350 Ph.3. This program, which is expected to run until 2045, will put much of L3Harris Technologies’ undersea communications and Command and Control (C2) technology into the water.
It will provide a sub-surface tracking capability to help current and future ADF assets and US Navy Virginia-class boats develop warfighting tactics and proficiency. The MUTR will capture and relay information on the location and movement of surface and sub-surface assets operating within the tracking field and will also facilitate exercises in both deep ocean and littoral waters.
For the Challenge L3Harris Technologies Australia has pulled together, from across both the local and parent company, what it says are integrated and proven or demonstrated technologies and products. These include the MASQ acoustic modem, the IVER family of Autonomous Undersea Vessels (AUV), CUUUWi (Communication Using Underwater Ultrasonic Wireless), the Australian-developed Rock Lobster disposable underwater acoustic relay system, and AMORPHOUS, or Autonomous Multi-domain Operations Resiliency Platform for Heterogeneous Unmanned Swarms.
And the company has teamed with WA-based AI specialist Priori Analytica as well as Curtin University in WA, Flinders University in South Australia, and the University of the Sunshine Coast.
L3Harris technologies Australia is proposing a Micro-Diameter Fibre Tether for the synchronisation and teaming of Undersea Vehicles (UVs) that addresses the RAN’s capability need for ‘near real-time’ communications between UVs (which could be crewed or uncrewed) and a C2 or Battle Management System (BMS) node.
The use of a very thin fibre-optic cable is similar in concept to wire-guided torpedoes, missiles and, increasingly, UAVs, and L3Harris Australia says this approach offers a secure link that can transfer data at up to 180Mbps. The micro-diameter fibre can deploy over 40km from spools located both on the host platform and the UV across what the company calls “operationally relevant depths and hydrographic conditions”.
Many of these capabilities were demonstrated at EX Autonomous Warrior in Jervis Bay late last year, Clements pointed out. EX Autonomous Warrior is now part of the larger AUKUS Pillar II Maritime Big Play program, a series of classified, integrated trilateral experiments and exercises aimed at enhancing advanced capability development in the autonomy space.
The company has teamed with Sydney-based Ocius Technologies; the RAN has acquired a number of its Bluebottle Uncrewed Surface Vessels (USV) and provided some of them to L3Harris Australia as Government-Furnished Equipment (GFE). The company has already installed an acoustic modem in one of the Bluebottles to communicate with seabed-based assets using the Rock Lobster acoustic relay, and it has also demonstrated communications between the Bluebottle and an IVER AUV.