Sweden Launches Saab’s LUUV Underwater Drone for the Baltic

Sweden’s Defence Materiel Administration (FMV), Saab and the Swedish Armed Forces have built and launched a demonstrator of the Large Uncrewed Underwater Vehicle (LUUV), developed to protect critical maritime infrastructure in the Baltic Sea. The platform is designed as a sensor carrier for seabed surveillance and threat detection.

In August 2025, FMV awarded Saab a development and demonstration contract worth SEK 60 million, covering the vehicle’s design, construction and testing. Under the contract, Saab took on the role of prime contractor, responsible for the entire process from design through to trials.

LUUV’s first sea trials had been planned for the summer of 2026, and the vehicle’s launch largely tracks that schedule. The platform is equipped with Saab’s “Autonomous Ocean Core” software architecture, which provides autonomous capability across the company’s surface and underwater vehicles.

According to the Swedish Armed Forces, LUUV will not carry weapons in the program’s first phase; its role is to independently detect and monitor threats and relay that information up the chain of command. The focus is on maintaining continuous surveillance of seabed infrastructure in the Baltic Sea — cables, pipelines and sensor networks.

The project is part of a broader regional trend that has gathered pace since a series of undersea cable and pipeline incidents in the Baltic Sea since 2023. Following Sweden’s accession to NATO, regional states accelerated procurement programs for both uncrewed underwater and surface platforms.

Saab is building LUUV on the same technology base as its AUV62 family and Sabertooth hybrid platforms within its underwater systems portfolio. Company officials note that autonomous underwater vehicles, once associated mainly with mine-hunting and reconnaissance, are increasingly taking on continuous surveillance roles such as critical-infrastructure protection.

FMV says that, should the demonstrator phase prove successful, the program could move toward a serial production decision, though that outcome will depend on test results and budget priorities. The Swedish Armed Forces plan to coordinate the project with NATO’s own critical-infrastructure protection initiatives in the Baltic Sea.

In terms of size and autonomy, LUUV sets itself apart from existing smaller autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The project team aims to use the vehicle’s long-endurance mission capability to reduce reliance on crewed patrol vessels. In that sense, LUUV stands out as a concrete example of the rising “seabed defense” concept in the Baltic and North Sea.

Another key element of the program is LUUV’s interoperability with other autonomous systems. According to FMV, the vehicle will eventually be integrated with uncrewed surface vessels and coastal sensor networks through a shared data-sharing protocol, so that the Baltic surveillance network becomes a mesh of communicating platforms rather than a single standalone system.

Sources

• Försvarets materielverk (FMV) / Saab AB, official statements on the LUUV development and demonstration program, 2025-2026 — used to verify the contract value, technical scope and timeline.
• Naval News, “Saab, FMV and the Swedish Armed Forces launch LUUV”, October 16, 2026, navalnews.com — used to confirm the launch news and the latest developments.