At the Indo Pacific 2025 convention, Thales Australia, Austal Australia and C2 Robotics announced a new partnership that would integrate the three companies’ systems to develop a scalable Australian ISR system that would detect and deter undersea threats in Australia’s northern approaches.
Defence Connect has published an article on the partnership. The following excerpt summarises the concept:
‘The three defence companies, speaking at the Indo Pacific International Maritime Exposition, announced the solution would involve the integration of C2’s Speartooth family of vehicles, Thales Australia’s suite of undersea warfare sensors and potentially could be fielded with Austal’s surface naval vessels.
The “surveillance network” would work to deter hostile sub-sea and surface threats by allowing surface vessels to drop and over time rotate or maintain Speartooth underwater vehicles at crucial naval chokepoints. These persistent and expendable long-range surveillance vehicles could record and then surface to report the passage of adversary contacts, such as submarines.
“This is three leading-edge Australian companies collaborating to provide relevant technology at speed,” said Michael Parker, C2 Robotics defence and maritime program director.
The layered military system integrates Thales Australia’s BlueSentry thin line towed array and BlueSeeker advanced passive sense and avoid capability into C2 Robotics’ silent, long-endurance Speartooth underwater vehicle to better leverage the coverage of the uncrewed system and extend its situational awareness across vast maritime domains. Speartooth vehicles could be “dropped” by passing Austal-manufactured Evolved Cape Class vessels, already in use with the Australian Border Force and Royal Australian Navy.’
For the full Defence Connect article, click here.
Austal have posted a video showing how the three companies’ systems would work together. To view the video, click here.