DATUM’s LÜFER Makes Its Exercise Debut: A 15-Kilometre Fibre-Optic UUV for Turkish Navy Commandos

During TURNAs-2026, Türkiye’s National Unmanned Maritime Systems Exercise held in the Gulf of Antalya and the Eastern Mediterranean from 19 to 27 October, Turkish Naval Forces SAT commando teams fielded DATUM’s LÜFER underwater vehicle in an operational scenario for the first time. At 1.2 metres long and 13 kilograms without its payload, the vehicle resembles a miniature torpedo.

LÜFER is a fibre-optic-guided reconnaissance vehicle with an optional one-way attack role. According to Naval News, the system carries an onboard spool holding up to 15 kilometres of fibre-optic cable, keeping the operator link intact even where heavy electronic warfare disrupts wireless control. RayHaber reported that DATUM offers 5, 10 or 15-kilometre range options depending on the mission.

What the wired link buys the operator

An onboard HD camera streams live imagery back to the operator, allowing the target area to be scouted before any approach to shore. Per DATUM’s own description, LÜFER’s role is not limited to surveillance: on request, the vehicle can convert into a single-use strike platform intended to disable, rather than sink, vulnerable components of a target vessel.

In the TURNAs-2026 scenario, SAT commandos released LÜFER from a rigid-hull inflatable boat at a safe distance offshore. The vehicle carried out remote reconnaissance ahead of a planned beach landing, after which the scenario moved on to drone strikes against targets ashore.

A one-person system for small teams

One of LÜFER’s notable features is that a single operator can carry and deploy it, meaning small teams can put the vehicle in the water without a dedicated launch platform. Control can be exercised from shore, from an inflatable boat, from a helicopter, or from an underwater position.

Same family as KOFANA, different scale

Alongside LÜFER, DATUM also showcased the larger KOFANA at TURNAs-2026. KOFANA measures 7.1 metres, displaces 4 tonnes underwater, and carries a single Malaman naval mine of up to 700 kilograms; its fibre-optic link extends to 80 kilometres and it can reach a top speed of 10 knots. Both vehicles share the same software and fibre-optic communications architecture, but LÜFER is built for portable, commando-scale reconnaissance and strike, while KOFANA is designed for covert mine-laying.

DATUM says both systems were developed with the company’s own funding. TURNAs-2026 brought together 41 unmanned systems from 17 companies, alongside 18 ships and several aircraft, with goals including field-testing new technologies and improving interoperability between crewed and uncrewed platforms.

The exercise was one of the first large-scale field tests of the Naval Forces Command’s push to manage unmanned systems as a single joint operating picture. During TURNAs-2026, HAVELSAN’s ADVENT Common Operating Picture infrastructure fused more than 40 sea, land and air unmanned vehicles into one screen; the reconnaissance data LÜFER generated can be seen as part of the underwater leg of that same picture.

Türkiye’s unmanned underwater systems sector has expanded quickly in recent years. DATUM’s own portfolio, including the ÇAMD mini-submarine and its test platforms, reflects that build-up, and LÜFER and KOFANA now extend it across two very different scales, from commando operations to mine warfare.

LÜFER’s fielding shows how Türkiye’s unmanned underwater lineup now spans from large mine-warfare platforms down to portable, commando-scale systems. The resilience a wired fibre-optic link offers under electronic warfare conditions stands out as the feature separating it from wireless-controlled alternatives, particularly for coastal reconnaissance and special-operations scenarios.

Sources

• Naval News, “DATUM LÜFER Reconnaissance/Attack UUV Showcased in Turkish Naval Exercise”, Tayfun Ozberk, 29 October 2026 — used for technical specifications, fibre-optic range and exercise scenario details. Read the report
• RayHaber, “LÜFER Sualtı Aracı TURNAS-2026 Tatbikatında İlk Kez Kullanıldı”, 28 October 2026 — used for the 5/10/15 km range options and exercise scope. Read the report