Australia plans to acquire a fleet of eight nuclear-powered submarines, exquisite technology, each with large crews and each costing many billions of dollars.
For much less than the cost of a single SSN, Australia could acquire several thousand large uncrewed under water vessels (LUUVs), each able to perform missions at long range over extended periods and with no crew at risk.
The Royal Australian Navy is seriously considering LUUVs and has contributed to funding development of the C2 Robotics Speartooth, Anduril Australia’s larger Ghost Shark and the Sea Wolf by Trusted Autonomous Systems of Brisbane.
C2 Robotics is wholly Australian, based in Melbourne and builds the Speartooth LUUV using commercial off-the-shelf components, sourced in Australia wherever possible.
“That means when you want to scale up you don’t new facilities and don’t need to laboriously produce exquisite components,” said C2 Robotics Director of Strategy Dr Marcus Hellyer.
“We now have well over 1,500 hours in-water testing. This is a real thing. Virtually every week we are operating in the ocean (and) that includes open ocean work.”
In peacetime, the challenge with any uncrewed system is satisfying regulators, in this case the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA).
“At the moment we are in the process of developing greater trust. That means increasing the confidence of users and regulators that things won’t go wrong and if they do there are systems in place to manage that,” Dr Hellyer told ADM.
To further the required trust, C2 Robotics and Thales Australia have announced a partnership to integrate Thales’ sensor technology into Speartooth.
Thales’ locally designed and developed sonar sensors and processing is expected to enhance Speartooth’s ability to navigate autonomously at long range with higher levels of safety, reliability, and precision.
“Collaborating with Thales, whose proficiency in sonar and acoustic payloads is world renowned, has the potential to accelerate Speartooth’s capabilities and footprint on an AUKUS stage,” said C2 Robotics chief technology officer Dr Tom Loveard.
“Most importantly, all of the sensors and electronics that will be integrated with Speartooth under this agreement are designed and produced locally at Thales’ Acoustics Centre of Excellence, Rydalmere, Sydney.”
Speartooth resembles a large black torpedo, 11 metres long, with the generation two variant featuring dual payload bays.
Speartooth doesn’t have a specific mission: it could be whatever the customer wants – maybe a sensor package or a payload that’s dropped off.
The US Forbes magazine suggests an explosive payload, making Speartooth a long endurance, long range suicide sub, expensive but a fraction of the price of a Mk.48 torpedo.
C2 Robotics and Defence won’t discuss potential payloads or range, but the Forbes article suggests around 2,000 kilometres.
Speartooth and her kin are almost wholly invisible to the general public and even the ADF, except at events such as the Autonomous Warrior (AW) exercise series where Australian and ally nations’ uncrewed surface and underseas vessels are trialled around Jervis Bay, NSW.
In the latest AW 2024, Speartooth reportedly performed well.
“The mission we have overwhelmingly focused on is being able to accurately and reliably deliver capabilities at range,” Hellyer said.
“The payload capability could be something it releases or something that remains attached or both at the same time. Once you can demonstrate you can reliably do that, then you can expand the mission sets.
“The start point is we are not trying be all things to all people and it’s doing great that that.”
Hellyer stresses that Speartooth is a real thing, not a concept in development.
“We keep saying it but I don’t think everybody has thought through what it means. These autonomous systems are here today. They are not science fiction and they are not hypothetical,” he said.
“They may not be able to do what a top-of-the-line crewed platform can do. Speartooth is not a one-for-one replacement for a Collins submarine.
“But autonomous systems already exist and can already complete missions. That basic mission is to be able to carry a payload from here to somewhere a long way away in a real live operational situation. That has huge utility.”
The ADF seems to see it that way as well. The 2024 Integrated Investment Program says uncrewed maritime vehicles will complement submarines and surface combatants. It proposes funding of up to $7.2 billion over the next decade.
“The Navy and Australian Defence Department in general has been really supportive and very helpful and that has enabled us to get where we are,” Hellyer said.
C2 Robotics’ design philosophy parallels that of Elon Musk’s SpaceX - build a bit, test a lot, break it, learn those lessons then build some more.
“You can do that with autonomous system in a way you can never do with crewed systems. The development cycle is just so much faster because they are much simpler,” he said.
Hellyer says Speartooth features around the same level of complexity as an electric vehicle, minus systems to keep driver and passengers alive.
He said while the Ukraine war had highlighted the use drones, it has also produced a view in some quarters that the Indo-Pacific was just too big for autonomous sub-sea systems.
Not so says Hellyer.
“Command and control systems are kind of agnostic around distance. Once beyond line of sight, it’s irrelevant that you are beyond line of sight by 100 kilometres or 10,000 kilometres,” he said.
“With the proliferation of modern energy storage techniques, we are breaking the association between size and range. Previously, if you wanted to go a long way you needed to be big.
“Now you can operate over long distances with a relatively small platform. As energy storage and the efficiency of propulsion systems improves, that range and endurance will only increase.”