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A new high-performance, low-cost, flexible and adaptable uncrewed undersea vessel called Sea Dart has been unveiled by Leidos.
The Sea Dart, with two different standard diameters of six and nine inches (as well as a 12-inch under consideration), and transportable by one or two people, is designed to support the US Navy and commercial customers across a broad range of missions.
The UUV is reportedly payload agnostic and compatible with the US Navy’s preferred underwater vehicle software architecture as well as the US Navy’s new non-propagating UUV battery design.
The Sea Dart is envisioned to provide high-performance and low-cost capability for difficult missions in contested high-risk environments, according to Dave Lewis, senior vice president of sea systems at Leidos.
“For more than two decades, Leidos has been at the forefront of supporting the US Navy with cutting-edge autonomous subsurface and surface vessels,” he said.
“Sea Dart is the next step in the progressive evolution of our UUV product line, introducing a new, low-cost commercial UUV to the market.
“It offers the flexibility to fully customise customer payloads while staying true to our core commitment to keeping production costs significantly lower than other models.”
The Sea Dart is also reportedly able to be utilised in scientific and research settings, counter-mine operations, underwater survey, battlespace preparation, environmental sensing and undersea infrastructure monitoring, depending on payload and configuration.
Sea Dart joins Leidos’ autonomous sea systems portfolio with the Sea Archer small unmanned surface vessel and operationally proven medium USVs such as Sea Hunter, Sea Hawk, Ranger and Mariner.
