The Pentagon is accelerating its push into autonomous undersea warfare. Following a competitive evaluation by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), the U.S. Navy has tapped Anduril to lead development under the Combat Autonomous Maritime Platform (CAMP) project. The goal is to deliver the Dive-XL, an extra-large autonomous underwater vehicle (XL-AUV) designed for long-endurance missions and heavy payload transport.
Anduril secured the contract after demonstrating the longest continuous operation of an XL-AUV in the industry. This real-world performance validated the vehicle’s ability to function in operationally relevant environments, reinforcing data from Anduril’s existing fleet, which has accumulated over 42,355 kilometers and 6,752 hours of mission time. The CAMP project will now require Anduril to complete another long-duration, representative demonstration of the Dive-XL within four months.
The program is a critical step for the U.S. Navy, shifting the focus from singular prototypes to experimenting with XL-AUVs at a meaningful scale. It establishes a direct bridge between rapid prototyping and eventual wide-scale operational adoption.
Anduril’s rapid progress is informed by parallel work in the Indo-Pacific. In 2025, the company secured a program of record with the Royal Australian Navy for the “Ghost Shark,” delivering both the vehicle and a dedicated production facility on an accelerated schedule. This success de-risked the U.S. program and validated Anduril’s agile manufacturing approach.
Currently, Anduril operates multiple Dive-XL vehicles stateside and maintains production lines in Sydney, Australia. To support the U.S. Navy’s ambitions, the company is scaling up a new facility in Quonset Point, Rhode Island, engineered to produce dozens of Dive-XLs and hundreds of the smaller Dive-LD variants per year.
Officials view these systems as transformative. By enabling the U.S. and its allies to operate persistently in denied environments and project power over extended ranges, the Dive-XL moves the concept of deep-sea dominance from a strategic goal into a tangible reality.
