Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is extending its maritime capabilities and presented its BlueWhale Large Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for the first time. This has successfully undergone thousands of autonomous operation hours, including intelligence-gathering for both maritime and coastal targets, acoustic intelligence, and identifying the presence of naval mines. The autonomous submarine can perform a significant portion of the operations of a manned submarine, for periods of several weeks, at minimal cost and maintenance, without the need for operators on board.
Like manned submarines, BlueWhale performs covert intelligence-gathering above the sea surface, can detect submarines, underwater targets and gather acoustic intelligence, and also search for and detect naval mines on the seabed.
