The 18-foot-long Echo Ranger fully autonomous, deep-diving submersible, was first developed by Boeing in 2001 to capture high-resolution images of sea beds for the oil and gas industries. Nowadays, it can be programmed for long-endurance, deep-dive missions that include surveillance, reconnaissance and environmental work.
For more than 40 years, Boeing has been in the maritime deep submersible industry. Rockwell International, a Boeing heritage company, pioneered deep-dive manned submersibles in the 1960s. And Boeing later was among the first to build a large-diameter UUV, Echo Ranger, capable of operating autonomously, not tethered to a mother ship and using mission-oriented navigation software to adjust to changing conditions. Continued Echo Ranger work at Boeing is focused on increasing the mission duration, power system efficiency and autonomous capabilities of the UUV.