German Navy tests BlueWhale autonomous underwater vehicle

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The German Navy conducted a two-week trial of the BlueWhale extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicle (XLUUV) from Israel Aerospace Industries in the Baltic Sea. This trial was part of the Navy’s Operational Experimentation (OPEX) initiative, supporting the Marine 2035 and Beyond strategy to address evolving security threats. The tests focused on evaluating new technologies under realistic conditions. Boaz Levy, IAI’s president and CEO, emphasized that autonomous submarines have the potential to revolutionize naval operations. He compared their transformative impact to that of unmanned aircraft, enabling extended missions without human operators.

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