Lockheed Martin has unveiled the Lamprey Multi-Mission Autonomous Undersea Vehicle (MMAUV), a breakthrough plug-and-play submersible designed to give U.S. and allied warfighters a technological and strategic edge in today’s contested maritime environment.
Built to meet the U.S. Navy’s need for covert, assured access and sea-denial operations, Lamprey MMAUV can arrive in theater fully charged and mission-ready. Mimicking nature, it attaches to a host surface vessel or submarine without requiring any modifications. While underway, the vehicle uses onboard hydrogenators to recharge its batteries, enabling it to deploy with extended range and endurance.
Lamprey MMAUV is designed to execute a wide range of missions, including delivering undersea and air kinetic and non-kinetic effects; conducting intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, targeting, and multi-intelligence collection; and deploying equipment to the seafloor.
“The modern battlespace demands platforms that hide, adapt and dominate,” said Paul Lemmo, vice president and general manager of Sensors, Effectors & Mission Systems at Lockheed Martin. “Lamprey MMAUV was internally funded, allowing us to iterate rapidly and deliver the Navy a true multi-mission capability that can detect, disrupt, decoy and engage autonomously.”
Key innovations include:
Novel range and placement: The vehicle attaches to a host ship or submarine and recharges in transit using built-in hydrogenators, requiring no host integration.
Payload-centric design: An open-architecture payload bay allows customization for missions ranging from anti-submarine torpedoes to UAV launch systems.
Dual-mode mission set: Lamprey MMAUV supports both Assured Access—stealthy intelligence, persistent surveillance and precision strike—and Sea Denial through electronic disruption, decoy deployment and kinetic attack.
By delivering persistent, autonomous undersea presence at far lower cost than manned platforms, Lamprey MMAUV enables control of denied areas and the seabed.
Lamprey MMAUV reflects Lockheed Martin’s decades of undersea expertise and commitment to warfighter-focused innovation, providing unmatched undersea dominance, faster decision cycles and a decisive advantage for the United States and its allies.
Source: Lockheed Martin