US Navy Awards Teledyne $39M Contract for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Teledyne Brown Engineering Inc. (TBE), a subsidiary of Teledyne Technologies Inc., was awarded an indefinite-quantity/indefinite-delivery contract worth up to $27.4 million from the U.S Navy for the littoral battlespace sensing-glider (LBS-G) program.

LBS-G is the first unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) program chosen for full-rate production by the U.S. Navy. This system, based on Teledyne Webb Research’s Slocum glider, will boost the Navy’s oceanographic research efforts and help in fleet maneuvers. TBE is the prime contractor and lead systems engineer for the program.

The LBS-G system, part of the LBS unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV) program, is part of a solution to close critical capability gaps allowing the U.S. Navy to characterize adequately and persistently the physical ocean environment on tactical and strategic scales in a battlespace.

The contract, announced July 19, includes a single five-year ordering period and five one-year option periods. The options, if exercised, have a ceiling value of $39.2 million.

TBE and sister company Teledyne Webb Research will design, develop, fabricate, produce, test, and support the LBS-G systems. The LBS-G is designed to adequately characterize the physical ocean environment on tactical and strategic scales in a battlespace. Teledyne Slocum gliders are long-endurance, buoyancy-driven autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) that sample and characterize the ocean water column properties at spatial and temporal resolutions not possible using other vessels or tactical units alone. They conduct persistent sampling of large ocean areas for long periods of time, and they allow focused sampling to obtain extremely high-resolution data within a smaller, tactically significant operating area.

The AUVs host a range of oceanographic sensors to support antisubmarine warfare, mine countermeasures, and other mission areas.