Image source: topwar.ru
The American company Raytheon has introduced the HADALUS underwater vehicle to the US Navy for the first time. As the developer points out, it has an impressive range of action, is capable of carrying various loads and has a low cost, which will allow the fleet to acquire a massive multifunctional platform for autonomous actions underwater at distant frontiers.
During this demonstration, HADALUS completed a series of autonomous missions, in particular, it successfully released a payload from its attached launcher while at depth. For the first time, the fleet saw in action a working bundle of sonars from Raytheon and the drone itself. It has been proven that one inexpensive device is capable of completing a full cycle in one trip to sea: "found a target – made contact – hit/ relieved load."
Unlike the early tests in 2025, where the HADALUS was considered an inconspicuous transport for supplying Marine units, this time the Navy showed its shock/mine-resistant version. The device launched PMO equipment and mock-ups of weapons. The main success of the presentation was that the working integration of the launch systems, sonars and composite housing was created in just 18 months from the start of the development of the device.
The HADALUS is 10.4 m long and 1.8 m in diameter. Its range of action, exceeding 3,700 km (2,000 nautical miles), allows the device to operate at long range, regardless of support equipment.
Image source: topwar.ru
The designers abandoned the creation of a classic "durable submarine" and built the device on the principle of a "wet hold", where water is both outside and inside. HADALUS is a carbon fiber "skeleton" inside which seawater freely "splashes". Due to this, the body does not experience a compressive load from the depth.
Since there is no air or metal bulkheads inside the case, almost the entire interior space of the device is free. The electronics, sensors, and batteries are hidden in small-sized and airtight capsules. The rest of the 10-meter robot's space is an empty volume hold (7 cubic meters). m), which can accommodate various fillings, including military ones, such as cargo, equipment (isolated in airtight containers), torpedoes or mines (which are adapted to "wet launch"). Water floods this compartment, but it does not interfere with the buoyancy of the device. In the heavy modification, the HADALUS has a load capacity of up to 2.7 tons.
The range of the device can be increased to 5.5 thousand km if the hold is filled with CET batteries. In this case, the drone gets the opportunity to "lie down on the bottom" and be on standby for up to 60 days.
Image source: topwar.ru
When creating the HADALUS, Flat Pack technology was used, which allows it to be disassembled and transported 3 units at once in a conventional shipping container.
Similar large underwater drones (XLUUV class, such as Boeing's Orca) cost the US budget about $10-30 million per unit (including development costs). HADALUS was created as a "consumable" or mass drone and costs, as stated in Raytheon, 3-5 times cheaper than the price of similar long-range deep-sea vehicles. This will allow the deployment of dozens of autonomous platforms, which will partially become an alternative to the nuclear fleet (the US Navy does not have diesel-electric submarines).
Thus, HADALUS is positioned as a cheap carbon "box" that is not afraid of the pressure of depth, because it is filled with water through and through. At the same time, there is a maximum of space left inside for military cargo.
