NTNU Trondheim · Autonomous submersible · 2027

It planes on the surface.Then it goes under.

A student-built autonomous submarine from NTNU Trondheim, with its own drone in the hull.

Render of Mobula on the surface with its bay hatch closed flush into the deck and its quadcopter airborne above the bow quarter

2027: Target season
532 nm: Optical uplink
5–10 MHz: Modulation rate
1 drone: Carried in the hull

About the project

Designed, built and tested by students at NTNU. The third machine from Dialga, after a 4G car and Ligmax. This one leaves the surface.

01Hull
CNC-cut aluminium plate, welded together.
02Electronics
Boards for the BMS, flight controllers and optical link.
03Autonomy
Control and perception, written in-house.
04Mechanics
All of the CAD and all of the machining.

01 In three dimensions

The whole assembly. Turn it yourself.

Click to zoom

Drag to orbit · click, then scroll, to zoom · 10 MB model

02 Partners

Thanks to our partners.

Without them there is no hull, no drone and no water time.

Sponsorship and partners

03 The vessel

One hull, two ways to move.

Planing across the surface or swimming beneath it, in one welded hull.

Pure side elevation of Mobula in its dive configuration: hatch closed flush into the deck, the lidar fairing at the tip of the bow, and the hull tapering aft to a single point — The dive configuration, in profile.

Three-quarter render of Mobula from ahead and above showing the faceted plate hull, the closed drone bay hatch and green LED modules along the side

01Construction

Cut from aluminium plate, welded together

Every crease is a weld between two CNC-cut plates, built to stay watertight below the surface.

Render of Mobula with its drone bay hatch closed flush into the deck and the quadcopter airborne above the bow quarter

02Mode 01 · Surface

Planing, with the bay shut flush

Fast and flat on twin propellers, with the drone away and nothing left standing above the deck.

Render of Mobula from astern and above, the tapered stern edge split into three segments with the outer two angled in opposite directions, and the twin propellers on separate struts below the hull — Outer segments angled against each other, which rolls the vessel.

03Mode 02 · Submerged

One hull shaped for both jobs

It sheds water when it planes and leads it over the hull when it dives. The outer two stern segments pivot as fins and, with differential thrust on the two motors, steer it under water.

Head-on render of Mobula's bow showing the forward dome and a camera aperture either side of it, picked out in blue — Cameras picked out in blue for this render. On the vessel they are black.

04Sensing · Cameras

Eyes either side of the bow

Two cameras flank the bow dome, low and close to the waterline.

Side render of Mobula with the drone bay hatch standing open above the deck, one lidar dome at the tip of the bow and a second on the aft rim of the bay, both picked out in blue, and the quadcopter airborne off the stern — Lidars picked out in blue for this render; on the vessel they are black. Hatch open, because the aft one cannot be seen any other way.

05Sensing · Lidar

Two lidars, nowhere near each other

One in the bow fairing, one on the aft rim of the drone bay.

04 The optical uplink

Radio stops at the surface. Green light doesn't.

Seawater swallows radio but lets blue-green light through, so Mobula transmits at 532 nm.

Mobula running just below a dark water surface, four green 532 nm emitters blooming through the water, with its drone holding station directly above the hull — The link running: hull shallow, emitters lit, drone overhead.

532nm: Emission wavelength
5–10MHz: Modulation rate
Sub → drone: Link direction

Close-up render of a recessed LED module on Mobula's hull: nine green emitters under three lenses on a green board, throwing a cone of light across the faceted plating — Nine emitters under three lenses, recessed into a hull facet.

In-houseEmitters and driver

An LED you can switch in the megahertz is a data link

The LED arrays and the driver that switches them are both built in-house.

MobulaSubmerged, shallow
DroneHolding station above
Ground stationOn shore

05 The drone

Built into the boat, not carried by it.

Its antenna and its eyes above the water. It launches off the deck, holds station overhead and lands back in the hull.

Render of Mobula on the surface with the bay hatch raised and the quadcopter airborne just off the deck

01Launch

The hatch is part of the hull

Shut, it is hull and the vessel can dive. Open, it is a launch deck.

Top-down render looking into Mobula's open drone bay, with a fiducial marker on the bay floor and the quadcopter descending onto it

02Recovery

It lands on a marker, not a guess

The drone's downward camera reads the fiducial marker on the bay floor and lands on it.

06 Roadmap

The road to the 2027 season.

2026 · 01
Design
Hull, drone bay and emitter design settled.
2026 · 02
Build
Hull fabrication, propulsion and first power-on.
2027 · 03
Test
Surface runs, then dive trials, then the link.
2027 · 04
Compete
Its first competition season, as a complete vessel.

07 Team

Meet the team

NTNU students, hands-on with every subsystem from the hull to the autonomy stack.

Andreas Lindeman
Co-team lead
andreaslindeman.com
Jacob Hansson
Co-team lead
jacobhansson.no

Amund Grønli
Subsystem lead
Erling Kvalø
Subsystem lead
Karolina Ulfstedt
Subsystem lead
Mathias Schiøtz
Subsystem lead
Mira Sannes
Subsystem lead
Nicolai Lindeman
Subsystem lead
Noah Johansen
Subsystem lead

Everyone listed alphabetically by first name.

The work behind them

Naval architecture
Electrical & power systems
Optical communications
Autonomy & controls
Drone systems
Software & ground station