The Navy has finished testing on one of its first biomimetic underwater drones: the GhostSwimmer. Swimming and looking like a fish, the unmanned drone will allow the Navy to explore the technological benefits of this design as well as how it operates.

Testing of GhostSwimmer, an underwater unmanned vehicle (UUV), ended on Dec. 11 successfully, according to Wired.

The UUV moves like a fish and looks, from a distance, like a shark. Around five feet long and weighing 100 pounds, GhostSwimmer is the latest Navy project to experiment using this sort of vehicle.

The Navy can operate GhostSwimmer instead of the bottlenose dolphins and sea lions they are currently using to try to detect mines and retrieve equipment.

The drone can also conduct tactical operations like “low visibility intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions and friendly hull inspections,” a U.S. Navy press release explained.

Describing the UUV as part of the Navy’s “science-fiction-turned-reality projects,” the release detailed its capability to dive between 10 inches and 300 feet.

The weeks-long trials, conducted by military contractor Boston Engineering, tested the craft “on tides, varied currents, wakes, and weather conditions for the development of future tasks," the press release said.

"It swims just like a fish does by oscillating its tail fin back and forth," said Michael Rufo, director of Boston Engineering's Advanced Systems Group. "The unit is a combination of unmanned systems engineering and unique propulsion and control capabilities."

Thanks to its battery, GhostSwimmer can operate for long periods of time. An operator using a laptop can control the drone with a 500-foot tether. Without the tether, GhostSwimmer would have to surface every so often to transmit information back.

The Navy tweeted out a photo of the drone, promoting its futuristic design.

GhostSwimmer was tested at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story (JEBLC-FS) as part of the Rapid Innovation Cell (CRIC) project, Silent NEMO.

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