The Department of Defense has selected Anduril’s Dive-LD autonomous underwater vehicles to participate in the second tranche of its modernization initiative dubbed Replicator, the DefenseScoop reported last week.
Anduril will join Replicator 1.2, an effort to advance industrial output capacity and the military’s implementation of autonomous systems in numerous combat environments.
Kathleen Hicks, deputy secretary of defense and a 2024 Wash100 Award recipient launched the first tranche of the initiative in August 2023.
During her keynote at the National Defense Industrial Association Emerging Technologies for Defense Conference and Exhibition on Aug 7th, Hicks said, “Although we have lots more work to do, we are on track to meet Replicator’s original goal of enabling ‘multiple thousands in multiple domains in 18-24 months’ — that is, by the end of August 2025.”
According to Anduril’s website, the Dive-LD drone can “conduct missions for up to 10 days with an architecture that scales for multi-week missions.” PMS 394, the Navy’s program office for advanced undersea systems, proposed the underwater vehicle alongside several other technologies.
Sources say the Dive-LD systems are selling for around $2.5 million each.