Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV)
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Lockheed Martin has introduced the Lamprey Multi-Mission Autonomous Undersea Vehicle (MMAUV), a modular submersible designed to provide a strategic advantage in contested maritime environments.
The AUV is engineered to meet the U.S. Navy’s requirements for covert access and sea denial. By mimicking natural hitchhiking behaviors, the Lamprey MMAUV can attach itself to a host surface ship or submarine without requiring modifications to the host vessel. While attached, it utilizes built-in hydrogenators to charge its batteries, ensuring it arrives in the mission theater with a full charge and ready for immediate deployment.
The platform features an open-architecture payload bay, allowing it to be tailored to a variety of specific mission sets. Its capabilities include the delivery of both kinetic and non-kinetic effects, intelligence collection, surveillance, and the deployment of equipment directly to the seafloor. It is designed to function in dual modes: Assured Access, focusing on stealthy reconnaissance and precision strikes, or Sea Denial, which involves electronic disruption and decoy deployment.
Paul Lemmo, Vice President and General Manager of Sensors, Effectors & Mission Systems at Lockheed Martin, stated, “The modern battlespace demands platforms that hide, adapt and dominate. LampreyMMAUV was internally funded, letting us iterate at lightning speed and hand the Navy a true multi mission weapon that detects, disrupts, decoys and engages on its own.
By offering a persistent autonomous presence, the system is intended to operate at a significantly lower cost than manned platforms. This design focus allows commanders to maintain undersea dominance and control of the seabed in high-risk areas. The development of the Lamprey MMAUV draws on decades of undersea domain experience to provide the United States and its allies with sharper decision cycles and a decisive technological edge.
