The new Speartooth Large Uncrewed Underwater Vehicle (LUUV) that has been under development for the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) has completed trials during the recent Autonomous Warrior 2023 exercise and is ready for the next stage of development.
Tom Loveard, C2 Robotics Chief Technology Officer, told ADM that during the two-week exercise completed on 3 November 2023, a new second-generation 8 metre long Speartooth LUUV demonstrated a series of outcomes for the RAN customer. He was not able to disclose what those outcomes were but that it proved a “minimum viable capability” that could achieve outcomes on a relevant scale.
“Since June 2022 we have been incrementally increasing the maturity of the system. The lessons learned from the first-generation platforms have been rolled into the second-generation ones,” Loveard said.
He was not able to disclose how many Speartooth LUUV variants of each type or generation had been built by C2 Robotics so far, but the development contracts were awarded under Warfare Innovation Navy (WIN) funding to bring the concept to a reality.
During Autonomous Warrior 2023 a new transportation and launch system was also proven. Up to two Speartooth LUUVs can be transported in a 20-foot TEU container and using rails and a trolley system can be deployed from the shore into the water. This can be completed by two people.
Speartooth is an 8m-long, 1m beam LUUV that can reach operational depths of 2000m and a range of 2000km, powered by Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. With a 2.7m-long payload bay section in the middle of the platform between the nose and tail sections, it can host almost any system that the RAN has bought as government furnished equipment.
More recently, C2 Robotics has designed the LUUV with the option of including a second payload bay section. Loveard explained that it means there are now options of having an extended version of Speartooth that has the two payload sections together to host larger payloads, two separate payloads with one containing batteries to provide a much larger longer range, or the single payload section.
Loveard explained that the longer ranges mean that the LUUV can operate at multi-thousand-kilometre ranges.
“Typically people are seeing this as a tactical asset, but combination of scale, range and deployability makes it much more of a strategic asset,” he said, “Pretty senior people I have met within Navy agree with that view.”
The rapid development of the system took place within two years going from conceptual experimentation to a minimum viable capability and demonstrating specific outcomes and discussing concept of operations means that the Speartooth platform was not really on the navy’s typical defence acquisition and programme agenda with an allocated budget.
“I think it caught them off guard a little bit that it has happened so quickly,” Loveard said.
“It can be pretty much be manufacturing ready from now. We have already identified existing industry partners that can produce Speartooth at very high scales in their existing facilities with some investing in tooling.”
He added: “We have a significant continuing development activity, but it is at the point that if they want to pull the trigger, we are ready when they are.”