Second Replicator tranche to include Anduril’s autonomous underwater drones

Pentagon leadership selected Anduril’s Dive-LD autonomous underwater vehicles as part of the second tranche of capabilities to be quickly mass produced via the high-profile modernization effort known as Replicator, multiple sources told DefenseScoop this week.

This news marks the first public report of technologies that made the Defense Department’s cut for Replicator 1.2 — and it also follows the company’s recently revealed plans to launch a new factory in Rhode Island to speed-up the manufacturing of these advanced uncrewed platforms.

Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks unveiled the Replicator initiative one year ago as a strategic effort to deter China by incentivizing and accelerating industrial production capacity and the military’s adoption of attritable, autonomous systems in multiple combat domains — through replicable processes — by mid-2025.

Hicks has been frank about DOD leaders’ aims to be deliberately tight-lipped and secretive about certain aspects of the project as it comes into fruition. Ahead of the Pentagon’s official announcement, DefenseScoop reported in April that the first tranche of capability selections to be expedited through this initial pursuit — referred to as Replicator 1.1 — included loitering munitions, counter-drone assets, and multiple types of unmanned surface vessels.

Hicks mentioned during a conference keynote last week that the Defense Innovation Unit and all three military departments are “working on a second tranche of [all-domain attritable autonomy, or ADA2] systems together.”

Sources who spoke to DefenseScoop on the condition of anonymity this week confirmed that Anduril’s Dive-LD autonomous underwater vehicles were put forward for Replicator by the Navy’s program office for advanced undersea systems — PMS 394 — and ultimately selected alongside several other technologies for the second tranche.

According to Anduril’s website, “the 3-ton Dive-LD is able to autonomously conduct missions for up to 10 days with an architecture that scales for multi-week missions,” and it’s “ideal for a variety of missions such as undersea battlespace intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, mine counter-warfare, anti-submarine warfare, seafloor mapping and more.”

The platforms have a 3D-printed exterior and are equipped to conduct missions at up to 6,000 meters of ocean depth.

One source told DefenseScoop that the Dive-LD systems cost about $2.5 million each.

“We have nothing to announce or confirm regarding Replicator 1, tranche 2 selections,” Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon told DefenseScoop in an email Wednesday.

An Anduril spokesperson declined to comment on the Replicator initiative. The Navy has not yet provided comment.