The Italian Ministry of Defence has recently submitted to the Italian Parliament a request to approve the programme for a new long-range autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) capability for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) operation
Unveiled with the release of the Italian MoD’s Multi-year Planning Document (Documento Programmatico Pluriennale) 2023-2025, the submission to the Parliament provides first details on the programme.
To satisfy the requirements for enforced persistence, surveillance and data collection in areas of direct national strategic interests, as well as the uncrewed ASW capabilities in support of force projection from the sea, alongside the control of underwater infrastructures such as pipelines, cables and offshore platforms, as reported by the accompanying submission documentation, the Italian Navy General Staff has requested the procurement of new long-range ISR/ASW AUV platforms with advanced capabilities in terms of modularity, endurance and flexibility. The latter package comprises three Large Displacement Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (LDAUVs) alongside their remote command and control station as well as launch and recovery system to be deployed on board surface and underwater platforms. The programme also includes payloads and systems in addition to training of operators and maintainers and logistic support.
The programme is centred, according to the accompanying documentation presented in Parliament, on the international cooperation developed by Italy and Israel on the autonomous capability, which is regulated by the memorandum of understanding (MoU) and framework arrangement signed between to the two procurement agecies in December 2021. The result is the to be developed “Italian-Israeli BlueWhale” (IIBW) LDAUV solution based on the BlueWhale (ELI-3325) platform by IAI/Elta Systems with the integration of payloads and systems developed by the Italian industry. The international industrial cooperation is based on the memorandum of collaboration that was signed in February 2022 and “defines the perimeter of industrial cooperation and workshare between the involved companies.” The document was signed by Elta Systems and the Italian companies Elettronica, FAAM, CABI Cattaneo, BATS Italia and ICS Technologies. Based on information released to the Parliament, CABI Cattaneo will develop the vehicle integration with the surface and underwater platforms, FAAM will provide the lithium ion batteries package while Elettronica, even if no details have been disclosed, is expected to supply the EW suite including signal and communication intelligence equipment. ICS Technologies will provide the sonar suite integration and BATS Italia the logistic support.
According to the accompanying documentation, the cooperation regards the joint research and development activities with the aim of developing an IIBW with the equal contribution of Israeli and Italian companies. Based on these agreements, the programme is aimed to develop sovereign technological competences, which could find in prospect potential export applications. The same documentation also highlights that no national solutions exists to meet the operational requirement set by the Italian Navy. The programme, according to the document presented to the Parliament has an overall estimated cost of 254.3 million Euro of which 6 million have already been allocated for the first two years of the programme, which will last 13 years.