BAE Systems this week unveiled its latest unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV), the medium-sized Riptide UUV-12.
This is the first new BAE UUV the company made public since it acquired the Massachusetts-based Riptide Autonomous Solutions last year. At the time, BAE said those assets would join BAE’s FAST Labs organization (
Defense Daily, June 3, 2019).
Riptide previously already had products including the man-portable µUUV, Micro UUV and Micro-Mini UUV, with the Navy as a customer for the suite of products.
According to BAE, the UUV-12 is 12 inches in diameter and can be adapted to meet various mission needs and deliver capabilities like combinations of Radio Frequency (RF) signal collection, RF electronic warfare, active acoustics, acoustic Identification Friend or Foe, acoustic and RF communications, mission autonomy, and navigation.
“The Riptide UUV-12 system significantly extends the Riptide family of UUVs by taking us into the medium UUV market,” Jeff Smith, chief scientist at BAE Systems’ FAST Labs™ research and development organization, said in a statement.
“With this medium-size platform, we are strategically aligning our modular, open architecture-based UUV platform to meet rapidly expanding applications and requirements,” he added.
BAE described Riptide UUV-12 as having a modular system design that allows “easy modification and customization,” high-efficiency electronics architecture combined with an efficient low-noise propulsion system, and an open system able to have native integration with leading industry sensors and technology.