A naval drone designed to stealthily catch a ride into battle has been developed by Lockheed Martin.
According to its developers, the Lamprey Multi-Mission Autonomous Undersea Vehicle is a robotic submarine that latches onto the hull of friendly ships or submarines, thereby conserving energy while traveling hundreds or thousands of miles to distant mission locations.
Source: Lockheed Martin
While uncrewed undersea vehicles promise persistent surveillance, distributed sensing, and new options for deterrence and combat in modern warfare, endurance and power management remain technical hurdles.
To address those issues, Lamprey was designed to mimic fish that attach themselves to larger animals to both save energy and gain protection. To enable that, the Lamprey relies on suction cups or a mechanical dock to latch onto the hull of a larger ship or submarine. Once attached, Lamprey produces electricity from the vessel’s motion via small turbines.
Because these turbines produce power from water flow, the Lamprey reaches its destination with fully charged batteries that power its thrusters, computers, sensors and subsystems. Meanwhile, a mast supports communications both above and below the surface.
As soon as the Lamprey detaches itself and begins to operate independently, its role is entirely dependent upon the vehicle’s payload — for instance, lightweight anti-submarine torpedoes, electronic warfare equipment, acoustic decoys designed to mimic other vessels and deployable sensor packages for intelligence collection. Thanks to its internal bay, which offers 24 cubic feet of space, the Lamprey can accommodate a wide range of mission modules.
Additionally, Lamprey can also be equipped with as many as three retractable twin-tube launchers for aerial drones, which promises to extend its reach above the surface.
Its developers explained that multiple units of the Lamprey can be deployed to an area and settle onto the seabed, remaining quiet while collecting data over extended periods, awaiting instructions, transmitting gathered intelligence, repositioning themselves or executing an attack when authorized.
For more on Lamprey, watch the accompanying video that appears courtesy of Lockheed Martin.
