International Submarine Engineering for Defence Research Establishment Pacific · underwater vehicle
Theseus
A 10.7 m battery-powered AUV built to run long missions under Arctic sea ice by itself, paying out fibre-optic cable as it went. It was designed for 450 km missions on silver-zinc batteries.
- Price
- —Government research vehicle, not sold
- Autonomy
- DriverlessHow it runs
- Driverless
- In serviceSince 1995
- Fleet
- 1Reported; details below
- Speed
- —Not published
- Range
- 450 kmPer charge or tank
Why it matters
Laid fibre-optic cable under Arctic ice to an acoustic array about 180 km offshore in 1996, a landmark long-range autonomous mission.
Real-world use
First Arctic deployment in spring 1995; in 1996 it delivered cable about 180 km under the ice in just over 24 hours.
Timeline
- First shown
- 1994
- Released
- Not yet
How it drives
Fleet and city figures move fast; each carries its date and who reported it.
- Driverless status
- Driverless in service
- Where it runs
- Canadian Arctic
- Driverless since
- 1995
- Fleet
- 1
- Rides, miles or loads
- 175 km one-way cable-laying transect under ice in April 1996 (Marine Technology News, 2016)
How it stacks up
Against other underwater that publish the figure. Pick a measure.
Too few underwater publish a weight to rank it. Bars show the 1 closest in date.
Not published by the maker: height, speed, payload, joints, battery, price.
Public attention
How much public attention Theseus gets, from open data.
- No Wikipedia article of its own yet
- No recent press stories listed yet
Measures how much people read and write about a robot, not how good it is. Measured 2026-10-13; same method for every robot. How it is measured
What’s inside
No component details published yet.
- Movement
- Other movement
- How it runs
- Fully autonomous. Does its job with nobody at the controls.
From the maker
Theseus is the only vehicle from International Submarine Engineering for Defence Research Establishment Pacific in the atlas.
Made, sold and where
No production or sales figures published yet.
- Price
- Not publishedGovernment research vehicle, not sold
- How to get one
- No official buying page found
Sources
Figures come from press coverage. Every link below backs something on this page.
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