Russian LDUUVs - Development and Uses

The Klavesin-1R or Harpsichord deepwater autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) (photos above and below) was developed by Russia's Institute of Marine Technology. This large AUV is sitting on the deck of the nuclear propelled icebreaker "Russia" (Rossiya) and being used to survey undersea oil rich Arctic waters that Russia claims. The AUV can dive to 6,000 meters. 

Like most advanced countries Russia is developing unmanned underwater vehicle (UUVs) for commercial and military purposes. (Photos courtesy Naval Drones at  http://www.navaldrones.com/Klavesin-1R.html)

Note the four thruster propellers which improve manoeuvrability and station keeping in tides or currents. 

For military uses AUVs are much less labour intensive and cheaper to operate than deep diving submarines like Russia's Losharik and the now decommissioned US submarine NR-1. However AUV/UUVs are too small to rescue people in sunken submarines (in a Kursk like emergency scenario). 

For secret missions AUVs can be carried by smaller, less specialised, submarines than BS-64 Podmoskovye (in the previous article). A submarine can deploy a large diameter/displacement unmanned underwater vehicle (LDUUV) like the Klavesin, through a vertical or horizontal multi-purpose lock (tube) or using a detachable pod (dry deck shelter) usually on the back of a submarine behind the sail. Military uses for a LDUUV include intelligence gathering, using claw-arms for submarine cable tapping , "borrowing" sea-floor sensors or breaking sea-floor oil-gas pipelines (in wartime). 

LDUUV or smaller UUV commercial applications include using side-scan radars for surveys - for  underwater pre-construction of oil and gas drilling rigs, pipeline routes and submarine cable routes.

The Teledyne Gavia Defence AUV (see website) supplied to Russia.

Russia has not developed UUVs all by itself. The UUV market it highly internationalised. Many Western companies have supplied UUV technology to Russia. One is Teledyne Gavia Iceland - which has supplied the Gavia Defence AUV. The Gavia AUV is described by Naval Drones as:

“a modular, man-portable autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) produced by Teledyne Gavia Iceland. The AUV's batteries and payloads are field swappable. Payloads include side scan sonar and digital cameras."  

"Naval applications include mine counter measures (MCM), anti-submarine warfare (ASW), environmental assessment, surveillance, Search & recovery, and port security. In 2013-14, the  Russian Navy acquired a total of eight Gavia AUVs for 744.244 million rubles [US$13.2 million]”.

BACKGROUND

The US is probably the leader in LDUUV developments. See Submarine Matters articles on US developments including:

- LDUUVs UUV AUVs and Undersea Cable Tapping? January 14, 2015 and

- UUVs Need to Complement Manned Submarines in Future, May 22, 2015.

Pete