Maritime surveillance company, ThayerMahan, Groton, Conn., has christened its first persistent uncrewed undersea surveillance vessel, the Outpost TM001. Outpost TM001 delivers scalable wide-area maritime surveillance capability that mitigates a rapidly growing undersea threat, ThayerMahan said in a statement.
The Outpost system supports AUKUS Pillar II, the second phase of the trilateral security agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. That phase focuses on joint advanced capabilities such as undersea and cyber technologies.
Developed in partnership with Ocius Technology of Australia, the 22’ Outpost is designed to increase anti-submarine warfare (ASW) surveillance capacity. A ThayerMahan press release noted the vessel can operate autonomously using renewable energy sources—solar, wind, and wave—and can be deployed quickly and at a lower cost than traditional crewed platforms.
The hull is manufactured by Ocius in Alexandria, New South Wales, while the payload—a deep-towed passive acoustic array coupled with ThayerMahan’s proprietary signal processing—provides persistent wide-area undersea surveillance. The system is designed to generate near real-time maritime intelligence.
Australian Ambassador Dr. Kevin Rudd highlighted the broader utility of the system, noting the Outpost platform is a flexible, renewable-energy-powered solution that has applications in both civilian and defense sectors.
ThayerMahan plans to field additional Outpost vessels to support maritime domain awareness and undersea monitoring missions across allied navies, the release said.
