Australia expands unmanned maritime capabilities with new payloads

The Australian DoD has announced new payloads for the Ghost Shark extra-large autonomous undersea vehicle (pictured). (Commonwealth of Australia)

Australia has developed new payloads for unmanned maritime vehicles, some of which will be tested with the United Kingdom and the United States under AUKUS Pillar 2 activities.

The Australian Department of Defence (DoD) announced on 19 October that the payloads have been integrated into the Ghost Shark extra-large autonomous undersea vehicle (XL-AUV), Speartooth large unmanned underwater vehicle (LUUV), and Bluebottle unmanned surface vehicle (USV).

The payloads will be demonstrated during the AUKUS partnership's Exercise ‘Maritime Big Play-Pacific' (MBP-P), being conducted from 5 to 25 October in San Diego, California, the DoD said.

Ghost Shark can now carry and deploy sea mines and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as well as equipment to support logistics operations, the DoD added.

Australia's Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy said that Ghost Shark can deploy up to 12 sea mines at a time and launch Anduril's Altius fixed-wing, tube-launched UAVs. The XL-AUV can deploy multiple Altius UAVs to conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike missions, Conroy added.

The DoD has not disclosed which Altius variants Ghost Shark can carry. Anduril offers the Altius-600 and Altius-700 for ISR missions, and Altius-600M and Altius-700M for strike missions.

Ghost Shark can also carry logistics caches developed by the DoD's Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG) to transport equipment, Conroy said.

Conroy said Ghost Shark can be deployed from a shipping container or launched from the back of a small vessel using a crane.