Ghost Sharks to patrol Aussie waters

A fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles capable of striking targets at extreme depths will be built in Sydney under a landmark $1.7bn defence contract.

Ghost Shark, an autonomous robotic undersea warfare vehicle designed to operate in a hostile environment, is being jointly developed and funded by a partnership between Defence and Anduril Australia.

Defence has awarded Anduril Australia a $1.7bn contract to build “dozens” of Ghost Shark Extra Large Autonomous Underwater Vehicles at a new factory in Sydney, with the first due to enter service in January next year.

Able to operate at depths of 5000m or more, “This is a world-class capability that (can) conduct intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and strike at extremely long distances from the Australian continent,” Pat Conroy, the Minister for Defence Industry, says.

“We’re also very excited about the opportunities to export to allies and like-minded countries because … we are confident we are leading the world in this advanced, extremely large, autonomous undersea capability.”

The announcement came just over three years after the Royal Australian Navy, Defence’s Science and Technology Group and the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator signed a $140m co-funded contract with the company – Anduril and the RAN contributed half each – to build three prototypes.

The first was completed 12 months ahead of schedule, says Shane Arnott of Anduril, so was used for intensive testing before the design for the next two was completed. The company paid to build a fourth prototype, which it flew to California for further testing.

Arnott, who runs Anduril’s maritime business, points out that the vital fibre-optic seabed cables connecting Australia with the world are vulnerable to damage and sabotage. Protecting them, and multiplying cheaply the effects of Australia’s crewed surface and submarine fleets, were starting points for the Ghost Shark program.

The Ghost Shark operates in a hostile environment, cut off from GPS and all forms of surface communication, Arnott says.

“Autonomy needs to be at a level that it is in no other domain, because you’re losing your primary senses, your ability to know where you are, your ability to talk to other people, and to have that human supervision that the vast majority of uncrewed systems today have,” he points out.

The “brain” of the Ghost Shark will be Anduril’s Lattice Operating System, which provides autonomy and command and control.

Defence hasn’t specified how many Ghost Sharks will be built, but the new factory will produce them for the RAN and its allies, as well as the commercial Dive-XL variant. A similar factory will be established in the US to build military and commercial variants for American customers.

However, when talking about uncrewed projects, commentators focus too much on the platform and not enough on its payload, says Commodore Michael Turner, ­director-general of the navy’s Maritime Integrated Capabilities branch, which has carriage of the Ghost Shark program.

“The payloads are the important part,” he says. “There are many, many payload options available, and Defence continues to develop those payloads. So when we talk autonomous systems, it’s important to distinguish between the underwater truck, which gets you from point A to point B, and the payloads which they carry.

‘The payloads dictate the missions that you can achieve.”

The RAN hasn’t said what sort of payloads it envisages for Ghost Shark. And the new factory might not have the capacity to produce them anyway, so navy may need additional factories to manufacture Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and strike payloads.

Although Anduril hasn’t disclosed its length and weight, Ghost Shark is big enough to operate the RAN’s 533mm diameter, 5.8m long Mk48 heavyweight torpedoes, if necessary; the RAN also operates the battery-powered, 323.7mm diameter, 2.85m long MU90 lightweight torpedo, and DSTG or industry could develop a range of sonars.

Anduril also manufactures all-electric Copperhead AUVs and the Seabed Sentry, which have exactly the same dimensions as the RAN’s torpedoes. The Copperheads can self-deploy from ships and submerged submarines; their payloads can include warheads or ISR systems such as sonars, and they move at more than 30kt.

The Seabed Sentry carries sonars and optical sensors; multiple Seabed Sentries can be laid on the seabed and connected in a mesh network enabled by the Lattice OS.

Two or three can triangulate to provide accurate target co-­ordinates.

“This came out of a need that we saw,” says Arnott.

“Much of the subsea is unattended right now and highly vulnerable. And we’re solving the networking problem undersea.

“No one’s really done that [before], and we’ve had success.”

But as all sailors know, the environment will always be hostile.

“It’s a really tough place to hang out, you know: the ocean wants to eat you,” says Arnott.