On March 25, L3Harris Technologies announced that it received an Other Transaction Authority contract from the Department of War’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to deliver its Torpedo Tube Launch and Recovery (TTLR) solution, an encapsulated system that deploys and retrieves the company’s Iver4 900 autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) through submarine torpedo tubes.
The L3Harris solution has already been validated at sea by both the US Navy and the UK’s Royal Navy, which has deployed it on ASTUTE-class submarines under Project SCYLLA. The maturation of solutions for the covert launch and recovery of drones from SSN torpedo tubes is an initiative included under the list of naval projects within the scope of AUKUS Pillar 2 collaboration.
The L3Harris solution was first tested on the USS DELAWARE in 2023. It was initially known under the name RAT CATCHER and was one of 2 solutions, with the other being the YELLOW MORAY by HII, designed for the launch and retrieval of REMUS 600, and later 620, AUVs from the same Company. The Royal Navy, working with L3Harris, tested Project SCYLLA in the Mediterranean in the summer of 2025.
The AUV employed, the Iver4 900, is a system that can operate at depths of 300 meters. It is offered with with rechargeable NiMH battery packs that support missions of up to 20-hour at ranges of 40 nautical miles, or an alternative Li-Ion battery, payload and current dependent, which pushes that up to 40 hours and 80 nautical miles.
According to L3Harris’s press release, the system “delivers the first U.S. Navy submarine- and aviation-approved AUV lithium-ion battery technology”: this is a key point because Lithium-ion technology offers several duration advantages but comes with inherent safety risks that have to be mitigated. The US Navy and HII are known to have worked on SAFECAP (Shock and Fire Enclosure Capsule), a system meant to contain the REMUS AUV and ensure safe storage in the torpedo tube and weapon handling and storage system aboard VIRGINIA-class submarines. L3Harris solutions clearly has measures of its own for containment of risks due to Li-io batteries.
The Iver4 series of AUVs is also employed in other roles by both the US Navy and Royal Navy, which for example employs a number of Iver4 580 for MCM and seafloor surveillance tasks.
Privacy Policy
Powered by © Mobilbyte s.a.s. Information Technology