Oceaneering International, Inc. [OII] said it recently wrapped up a week-long Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) demonstration for the Navy and Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) with its platform to prototype for a future Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (LDUUV) program.
The company said it demonstrated a “portfolio of capabilities” to design, engineer, operate, and maintain its Freedom AUV at its subsea autonomy testing facility in Norway. It announced this progress on April 4.
Oceaneering said the Freedom AUV was specifically picked to evaluate capabilities of the platform for “potential future development of a LDUUV prototype.”
The demonstration included several days of at-sea testing to show off the autonomous capabilities of the vehicle like undocking, docking, obstacle avoidance, precision payload placement, survey and transit.
Oceaneering’s Freedom AUV is currently used for subsea survey work, like pipeline inspections.
In February, Navy Sea Systems Command’s Program Office for Advanced Undersea Systems (PMS 394) and DIU announced they selected Anduril Industries, Kongsberg Discovery, and Oceaneering International to prototype Large UVs for testing (Defense Daily, Feb. 8).
This week-long demonstration was the first phase of the contract for Oceaneering. The company said that if Phase Two is executed, it will include unspecified prototype development tasks.
DIU’s awards cover a base period of four months and options to extend the performance period to two years. The value of the contracts was not disclosed.
When the DIU selection was announced, it said one of the main efforts of the LDUUV project is for long-endurance vessels that can deliver payloads and effectors against adversaries for subsea and seabed warfare and undersea warfare.
DIU previously said live demonstrations were set to start in March.