Unmanned marine vehicles are becoming more and more popular for civil and military purposes. Departments are increasingly ordering the development of drones and are keenly interested in existing samples. So on the website of public procurement of the Ministry of industry and trade of Russia placed a tender worth 500 million rubles for the development of an underwater uninhabited vehicle with increased autonomy by 2024.
According to the published accompanying documents, it is planned to achieve an increase in the duration and range of the device's navigation due to an air-independent power plant based on a hydrogen-oxygen battery. Development work under the state defense order should be completed in October 2023, and the estimated time frame for the introduction of the new device is 2024-2025.
According to the documentation, a promising marine robot with a hull diameter of up to 300 mm will be equipped with a hydroacoustic system and radio communication facilities. It must operate independently for at least 24 hours at a depth of 1000 meters, reach a maximum speed under water of at least 2.5 m / s, automatically avoid obstacles, take pictures of the bottom surface and objects in water areas with a water density of 1000-1054 kg / m3, and measure environmental parameters (temperature, speed of sound, pressure) over the entire range of operating depths of immersion.
The underwater drone is supposed to be used in the interests of the Navy, other law enforcement agencies, as well as civilian customers.
Currently, the United shipbuilding Corporation is developing the "Perspektiva "R" - Autonomous uninhabited underwater vehicles with the ability to release/receive from existing and prospective underwater carriers. According to the Corporation's annual report for 2019, the completion date for these works is 2025.
In may 2020, the bottom of the Mariana trench was reached by a deep-water unmanned vehicle "Vityaz", developed by the Foundation for advanced research. It is planned to further Refine this drone and transfer it to the Pacific fleet. The Foundation is also developing an unmanned underwater vehicle "Sarma" with an autonomy of up to three months.
In addition, work is being completed on the creation of a nuclear submarine-UAV "Poseidon". It is believed that the Poseidon carriers will be the nuclear submarines Belgorod and Khabarovsk.
Earlier, the head of the Department of shipbuilding of the Russian Navy, rear Admiral Vladimir Tryapichnikov, stated that currently the Russian Navy in the development of shipbuilding focuses on unmanned vehicles. "We are taking serious steps to implement the shipbuilding program until 2050. All ships have modern weapons. "The main focus is on non-emergency vehicles," he said. — These are unmanned boats, unmanned aerial vehicles, and robotic vehicles that perform tasks under water. We rely on these funds, weapons and military equipment."