Innovating the Deep: UK Engineers Launch a Game-Changing Autonomous Submarine for National Security

A collective of British technicians based in Portsmouth has successfully unveiled a groundbreaking type of self-sufficient submarine, designed explicitly for defense applications, along the southern coastline of England.

The vessel, named Herne, is categorized as an extra-large autonomous underwater vehicle (XLAUV) and has been customized by BAE Systems to enable military forces to monitor and protect underwater assets across vast seabed regions, assist in anti-submarine strategies, and provide an alternative method for executing covert reconnaissance missions.

The evaluations carried out earlier this month witnessed the craft executing a pre-planned intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance task, powered by Nautomate, the company’s versatile high-performance military control system. This follows positive assessments of the technology on a surface vessel earlier this year.

Scott Jamieson, Managing Director of BAE Systems’ Maritime Services division, commented: “Herne signifies a remarkable advancement in the underwater warfare arena. It will deliver our clients with a cost-effective self-governing capability that facilitates a diverse assortment of operations, reduces dependency on manned platforms, ensuring personnel safety while augmenting operational endurance.”

Capable of being integrated onto both existing or newly constructed vessels, Nautomate offers an economical solution to enhance autonomous functionalities, allowing for operations with greater scale, endurance, and persistence while eradicating the necessity for human crews to operate in perilous environments. This enables skilled personnel to focus on tasks where human input holds the most significance.

Another benefit of underwater autonomy is that, absent the requirement for resupply or life support systems, Herne can monitor the subaqueous domain significantly longer than a crewed counterpart.

It is also engineered to be upgradable as new technologies or operational procedures emerge, utilizing open architecture mission plug-ins.

BAE Systems collaborated with the Canadian company Cellula Robotics to present the demonstrative version of Herne XLAUV. This successful partnership culminated in a “whiteboard to water” capability within just 11 months, illustrating the rapid pace at which BAE Systems can introduce Herne and other autonomous maritime innovations.

With the technology successfully demonstrated, the BAE Systems team will advance to enhance Herne through further trials, tailored according to customer requirements.