Company teams up with Fassmer and Rheinmetall to produce and promote innovative new UUV for global markets.
German naval electronics specialist EUROATLAS GmbH revealed more details on their new GREYSHARK- large uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) at IMDEX Asia 2025 in Singapore on 6-8 May 2025. New information concerns the way the company aims to both produce and promote the intriguing new design.
The EUROATLAS booth at IMDEX for the first time noted a collaboration between the company and two other German defence specialists, emphasising a national competency angle on naval drone-development and exports. The companies in question are shipbuilder Fassmer and arms manufacturer Rheinmetall. In conversation with Naval News, EUROATLAS representatives detailed that Fassmer has built the composite-hull of the drone, a particular expertise of the builder. Fassmer-officials added that the company will also perform final assembly for GREYSHARK-UUVs offered by the collaboration to interested navies.
The appearance of Rheinmetall is somewhat more surprising, given the company has so far not had a notable footprint in the naval drone-market. However, according to EUROATLAS-officials, this collaboration benefits from Rheinmetalls significant local presence in Southeast Asia. While Rheinmetall so far does not directly contribute to development on GREYSHARK, this tie-up therefore focuses on promoting the new design to national militaries with established ties to the Rheinmetall-product portfolio.
As Naval News recently reported, GREYSHARK is the result of a collaboration between EUROATLAS and another German company, Evo Logics. GREYSHARK follows on Evo Logics previous development of the smaller Quadroin UUV. Quadroin is a compact drone with an mass of 25 kg at a length of 1,120 mm. What makes the design stand out from a glut of other compact UUVs is what the company details as a “low-drag bionic” design, and an innovative acoustic underwater communication capability based on dolphin-communication.
A persistent weakness of any underwater vehicle including drones is their limited means of communication with other platforms. Underwater communciation is not a recent development, and includes the well-known “underwater telephone” in use with submarines and surface warships. The innovation with the Evo Logics-approach lies in what a relevant patent terms “sweep-spread carrier for underwater communication over acoustic channels with strong multipath propagation”. In essence, the technology aims at increasing both reliability and data-density transmitted between moving objects. These may include UUVs, divers or crewed submarines.
The benefit for larger uncrewed vessels such as GREYSHARK is obvious. Acoustic sweep spread carrier-communciation enables reliable swarming of multiple drones. It also sidesteps a weakness of many UUVs needing to stay near the surface to reliably communicate with third parties. The technology, as applied by EUROATLAS for GREYSHARK, allows operations to a depth of 650 metres. However, the company is also aiming at substantially improving GREYSHARK’s diving range. The future development path aims at dives down to 4,000 metres. Such an improvement for persistent drone operations would allow access to vast parts of the oceans that have so far remained out of bounds, especially for military operations.
As described in our previous reporting, EUROATLAS develops GREYSHARK in two variants. The first is a battery-powered design with a length of 6.5 metres and a displacement of 3,500 kg. This GREYSHARK “Bravo” has an endurance of 6 hours or 60 NM at 10 knots cruise speed. At a speed of 4.4 knots GreyShark Bravo achieves an endurance of 5.5 days or up to 550 NM. EUROATLAS has already successfully performed several tests with GREYSHARK Bravo, including open water-testing. The design continues testing throughout 2025, with both the German and the United States navies participating as observers.
The second variant is GREYSHARK Foxtrot. This variant adds a fuel cell for significantly increased energy reserves and related performance. GREYSHARK Foxtrot is larger than the battery-powered design, at 7.99 metres overall length and displacement of 4.5 tons. The fuel cell dramatically increases endurance, to 5 days or 1,100 NM at 10 knots. At a speed of 4 knots the design can stay submerged for 16 weeks. Based on nautical conditions, the UUV may travel up to 10,700 NM. GREYSHARK Foxtrot capitalises on the segmented ring propeller achieving a top speed of over 12 knots over meaningful periods.
Payloads for both variants include a wide range of sensors and imaging systems. These include side-scanning synthetic aperture sonar, multibeam forward looking sonar, electromagnetic sensing and a high resolution multispectral underwater camera. Communication beyond the acoustic system includes a telescopic antenna mounting LTE, GNSS and military radio capability. Data-fusion and self learning-capabilities increase autonomy and ease of use. GREYSHARK adopts the Quadronic “bionic” design. The shape enables the drone to dive and surface near vertically at high speeds and very tight turns.
With a national industrial collaboration in place to produce and promote a distinct proposal in the UUV-market that is already undergoing active testing, EUROATLAS, Fassmer and Rheinmetall appear well set up to compete for the rapidly developing and diversifying global defence market for autonomous systems.
