The latest Digital Talon exercise, conducted earlier this month in the Middle East region, included a variety of robotic capabilities that could play a significant role in future conflicts.

“Digital Talon 3.0 … tested the electronic and mechanical effectiveness of robotics and autonomous systems (RAS), the capabilities of over-the-horizon communications between unmanned systems, and testing aerial autonomous launch and recovery of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) off a unmanned surface vessel (USV),” NAVCENT stated in a press release Sunday.

The exercise involved Task Group 59.1, which was established earlier this year and reports to Task Force 59 — a key unit based in the Middle East under 5th Fleet that’s helping the Navy operationalize AI and uncrewed platforms for real-world missions.

“Under Digital Talon 3.0 we were able to test the remote launch of a loitering munition, and vertical take-off and landing of UAVs from a USV,” Lt. Luis Echeverria, commanding officer of the new task group, said in a statement, adding that these “evolutions resulted in the successful remote launch of a loitering munition at sea.”

This wasn’t the first time that a robo-ship operated by the Navy launched a kamikaze drone.

During a Digital Talon exercise last year, the unit successfully attacked a target boat with a “Lethal Miniature Aerial Missile System” fired from a MARTAC T-38 Devil Ray USV, according to officials.

However, the latest iteration of the exercise expanded the over-the-horizon capabilities of these types of uncrewed systems, according to Echeverria.

These efforts are unfolding as the Navy steams ahead with new initiatives to incorporate more unmanned and autonomous technologies into the force.

The sea service established a new “robotics warfare specialist” general rating earlier this year.

“RW Sailors will enable Robotic and Autonomous System (RAS) operations and maintenance at the tactical edge. RWs will be the subject matter experts for computer vision, mission autonomy, navigation autonomy, data systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning on our RAS platforms,” according to a NAVADMIN announcement from Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti released in February.

In September, Franchetti unveiled “Project 33,” which is part of her “CNO Navigation Plan” and places a heavy emphasis on robotic systems and information dominance as the service prepares for a potential conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific.

“The Chairman of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has told his forces to be ready for war by 2027 — we will be more ready,” Franchetti wrote, acknowledging that the Defense Department “cannot manifest a bigger traditional Navy in a few short years.”

Incorporating more robo-ships and other uncrewed platforms into the fleet is seen as a solution to that problem.

“Project 33 is how we will get more ready players on the field by 2027,” she added, stating that the sea service will by then have integrated proven robotic and autonomous systems for routine use by the commanders who will employ them.

Senior Navy officials envision these types of systems as being useful for sea-denial missions.

Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said unmanned platforms like those that are part of the Pentagon’s Replicator initiative offer significant benefits. They fit in with the “Hellscape” warfighting concept that he’s laid out for a potential conflict with China in the Taiwan Strait.

“Certainly, these systems are ideal in enclosed spaces … if you can deploy it,” he said last week at a Brookings Institution event. “For closed spaces, for executing sea denial, this can be a very key capability.”

Technologies that the Pentagon is trying to accelerate under Replicator include loitering munitions and other types of drones, USVs and unmanned underwater vehicles, among other tools.

Last week, the Defense Innovation Unit, which is playing a key role in the initiative, unveiled the recent winners of Replicator software contracts.

Meanwhile, Task Force 59 and Task Group 59.1 aren’t the only Navy units experimenting with new unmanned systems.

Earlier this year, the service stood up Unmanned Surface Vessel Squadron Three (USVRON Three) in San Diego to oversee a “fleet” of small uncrewed surface vessels, including the Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC). The organization is expected to help build the foundational knowledge required to operate and maintain small USVs and develop tactics, techniques and procedures for operations and sustainment, according to officials.

Using uncrewed surface vessels to launch loitering munitions and other types of UAVs could be a new tactic that the Navy introduces for warfighting in the coming years.

The first two Digital Talon exercises, held about a year ago, “advanced lethality and kinetic applications for unmanned systems,” but version 3.0 “examined more advanced tactics,” according to the NAVCENT news release, which attributed the observation to Royal Navy Lt. Samuel Hendy, executive officer of Task Group 59.1.

“As with all pioneering ventures and first-of-its-kind feats, there are plenty of challenges to overcome, lessons to be analyzed, but we are a learning organization and it all combines to further benefit 5th Fleets’ understanding and employment of this state-of-the-art warfare,” Hendy said in a statement. “If there is one thing we can take away, Digital Talon 3.0 affirms that the U.S. Navy, as well as her partner nations, remains at the forefront of cutting-edge unmanned system integration and deployment.”

The loitering munition fired during the exercise was a Switchblade 600, a NAVCENT spokesperson told DefenseScoop. That platform, built by AeroVironment, is also one of the systems selected for accelerated acquisition by the U.S. military via Replicator.

The drone is designed to carry high-precision optics and an anti-armor warhead. It has upwards of 40 minutes of loitering endurance, a range of 40-plus kilometers, and a “sprint speed” of 185 kilometers per hour, according to a product description from the vendor. The all-up round weighs 65 pounds.

“Equipped with class-leading, high-resolution EO/IR gimbaled sensors and advanced precision flight control, Switchblade 600 empowers the warfighter with quick and easy deployment via tube-launch, and the capability to fly, track and engage non-line-of-sight targets and armored vehicles with precision lethal effects without the need for external ISR or fires assets,” according to a company product description, which noted that the system’s “wave-off and recommit capability allows operators to abort the mission at any time and then re-engage either the same or other targets multiple times based on operator command.”

With regard to the USV and other drones that were involved in the latest Digital Talon exercise, the NAVCENT spokesperson said: “Specific effects and capabilities relevant to Digital Talon 3.0 were provided via GSA contracts for contractor-owned, contractor-operated platforms.”

The commander of Special Operations Forces Central Command, Avenger-class mine countermeasures ship USS Devastator, U.S. Coast Guard Sentinel-class fast response cutter USCGC Emlen Tunnell and industry partners also participated in the event, according to NAVCENT.

Updated on Nov. 26, 2024, at 3:30 PM: This story has been updated to include additional information provided to DefenseScoop by a NAVCENT spokesperson regarding the loitering munition and other capabilities that were involved in Digital Talon 3.0.

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The drone deployments came amid tensions over Tehran’s maritime activities and a push by the U.S. military to incorporate more robotic platforms into the joint force and team them with crewed systems.

“Last month, naval forces in the Middle East region successfully integrated unmanned platforms with traditionally crewed ships and aircraft to conduct enhanced maritime security operations in the waters surrounding the Arabian Peninsula,” NAVCENT said in a release Friday. “This operation bolstered presence in and around a critical chokepoint that in recent months has seen Iran unlawfully seize internationally flagged merchant ships.”

The operation — which included sailors, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and systems from Task Force 51/5 (amphibious/Marine), Task Force 52 (mine countermeasures), Task Force 53 (logistics), Task Force 55 (surface warfare), Task Force 56 (expeditionary), Task Force 57 (patrol/reconnaissance) and Task Force 59 (unmanned systems and AI) — occurred “over several days during routine patrols in and around the Strait of Hormuz,” according to the release.

The Navy is pursuing a variety of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned surface vessels (USVs) and unmanned underwater vessels (UUVs) as it moves toward a “hybrid fleet” of crewed and uncrewed systems. And it’s looking to combine them with artificial intelligence tools to enable computer vision, anomalous behavior detection, multi-system command and control, and edge intelligence, among other potential use cases.

Task Force 59, which reached full operational capability earlier this year under 5th Fleet, has been spearheading experimentation and deployment of these types of technologies, including commercial USVs manufactured by Saildrone and others.

The Navy recently expanded the unmanned systems and AI concept to 4th Fleet in Central and South America, and it’s expected to be adopted by fleets based in the Indo-Pacific as well.

“We have been operating UAVs and UUVs in the [Middle East] region for years,” Capt. Joe Baggett, director of maritime operations for NAVCENT and 5th Fleet, said in a statement. “Adding our new USVs, and then integrating all of these platforms into fleet operations, is how we expect to fly and sail well into the future.”

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The initiative will incorporate lessons learned from Task Force 59, which has been operating under 5th Fleet in the Middle East. The task force has been using unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, sensors and the cloud to create what officials are calling a “mesh network” for U.S. Central Command intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.

Soon, U.S. Southern Command will be getting more of these types of capabilities.

“We’re ready to expand our unmanned platforms beyond the Middle East, and … I’m pleased to announce that we will scale unmanned platforms to the fleet level and the 4th Fleet as well,” Del Toro said at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference.

“The 4th Fleet area of operations provides us with an environment best suited to operationalize the concepts Task Force 59 has worked tirelessly to develop to increase our maritime domain awareness, or MDA, capabilities. These unmanned platforms will meet the needs of our Southcom and 4th Fleet commanders and our partners in the Joint Interagency Task Force South as they defend the approaches to our homeland,” he added.

The ISR technologies will help the U.S. and its partners in the region combat problems like drug running, human trafficking and illegal fishing, according to Del Toro, who highlighted China’s distant water fishing activities as a concern.

Leaning on robotic platforms for these ISR activities will help the Navy “keep more of an unblinking eye on that traffic,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday said at the conference. It is also expected to free up manned ships for other missions.

The initiative will also inform the Navy’s journey toward a “hybrid fleet” of manned and unmanned vessels, and the service plans to apply the lessons learned in the 4th Fleet to future operations and other combatant command areas of responsibility, Del Toro noted.

The Navy is planning to move “fairly quickly” with the 4th Fleet. Some work is already underway but the new effort will “really take shape” during the upcoming UNITAS 23 exercise this summer, he said.

UNITAS is an annual multinational maritime exercise conducted in the waters around Central and South America. The aim is to enhance security cooperation and improve coalition operations. More than 20 ships and 5,500 personnel from 19 partner nations participated in last year’s exercise, according to Southcom.

The exercise will contribute to the Navy’s goal of bringing allies and partners into the fold for 4th Fleet’s unmanned initiatives.

“Our kickoff, really, will be UNITAS in July,” Gilday said.

Although 4th Fleet will leverage lessons learned from 5th Fleet, the Navy isn’t planning to create a separate unmanned task force for Southcom along the lines of Task Force 59.

“One of the changes that we’re making as we evolve and learn is to see if we can integrate this unmanned capability into our existing … fleet organizational structure,” Gilday noted. “There will be some, you know, specialized personnel on the staff. But for the most part, it will stay within the traditional” organizational constructs.

Gilday elaborated on these plans to “normalize” the introduction of unmanned forces during a meeting with reporters on the sidelines of the conference.

“It will be integrated into the existing command structure, into the existing staff. So, intelligence, operations, plans, manpower … it’ll all be integrated in. So we wanted to take a different approach rather than a task force this time, because … we’re integrating additional sensors into the battlespace and we think this is another way to normalize it,” he said.

However, the Navy’s 4th Fleet has been working with 5th Fleet to take lessons learned as it gears up for the new initiative, Del Toro noted.

“We’ve also been baking some of it into the budget as well, too, so we have the resources necessary to kick it off,” he told reporters. He did not elaborate on the amount of funding allotted to support these efforts.

The 5th Fleet is aiming to achieve a combined international fleet of about 100 unmanned surface vessels later this year to support the work of Task Force 59. However, the Navy hasn’t yet settled on a force-level goal for 4th Fleet’s unmanned component, which will include maritime drones and unmanned aerial vehicles, Gilday told DefenseScoop during the meeting with reporters.

“I think that’ll evolve … I think it’s going to be informed by the progress that we see by getting an understanding of the battlespace we want to cover and what makes most sense with respect to numbers. We’re just not at that point yet. So we’ll be doing some learning. And the good thing about this capability is we can scale it fast,” he said.

Del Toro added: “I think it’s fair to say, however, that you want to start small and build upon it, obviously. So you know, focus perhaps on the Caribbean Basin first and then expand beyond that.”

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Wikoff, who is currently vice director of the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, has also been selected for appointment to the grade of vice admiral, with assignment as commander, U.S. Naval Forces, Central Command and commander, Combined Maritime Forces, Manama, Bahrain, the Defense Department announced on Friday.

The assignments would connect him to Task Force 59, which is developing a “mesh network” of unmanned surface vessels and other assets enabled by artificial intelligence and the cloud. The organization, which falls under 5th Fleet and is currently led by Capt. Michael Brasseur, recently reached full operational capability in the Middle East region.

Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told DefenseScoop in December that the service plans to create additional unmanned task forces, modeled after Task Force 59, in other regions.

Wikoff has an aviation background, having served operationally in Fighter Squadron (VF) 102 and VF-154, according to his official Navy bio.

His command assignments have included Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 211 deployed onboard USS Enterprise (CVN 65), VFA-122, Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 3 deployed onboard USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), and Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 5 forward deployed to Yokosuka, Japan onboard USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76).

His shore assignments have included the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center, as TOPGUN training officer; Naval Personnel Command as a placement officer for the Tomcat and Super Hornet communities; Joint Staff as an action officer in the Operations Directorate, Deputy Directorate for Antiterrorism and Homeland Defense (J-34); chief of naval operations staff as air warfare special programs requirements officer (N88); the Combined Air and Space Operations Center as battle director in Qatar; U.S. Naval Forces Central Command as chief of staff and maritime operations center director in Bahrain, executive assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations, and Joint Staff as deputy director for operations (OT-5) and assistant director for Global Integration and Current Operations (J-33).

If confirmed, Wikoff would succeed Vice Adm. Brad Cooper. The DOD personnel announcement did not address Cooper’s future or his next assignment.

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Medium USVs could be used to conduct a variety of missions, such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), or to conduct attacks.

“There’s a reason that … we’re doing a lot of prototyping with vessels that can take some containerized payloads because, you know, that makes potential integration of new and different payloads — kinetic and non-kinetic — easier,” Moton, the program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants, said at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium on Thursday.

“Regarding how unmanned is gonna play in that [future operating environment], I mean, we’re kind of learning that. You know, 5th Fleet [is doing] lots of work in the ISR area. If you want at least one country or one area’s vision of how unmanned may play in a kinetic fight, just watch the news coming out of the Black Sea [where Ukraine has been using drones, including USVs, to monitor and attack Russian forces]. And I think the rest of us will see how that goes. But we’re trying to get all the building blocks ready to support whichever way the mission goes,” he said.

While the Navy has not fully committed to acquiring a fleet of medium USVs, Moton noted that large unmanned surface vessels are a high priority for the Navy.

Moton said the sea service is “pretty sure about” the requirement for having large USVs serve as an “adjunct magazine” of weaponry. But other requirements have yet to be nailed down.

However, he emphasized that the concept of operations for these types of systems will be “fully compliant” with the Defense Department’s autonomous weapons policy.

“The LUSV ConOps is not intended to be [fully] autonomous. It is engage-on-remote just like we already do in our Aegis [destroyer] fleet. The only difference is the human that’s actually making the engage decision is sitting on a platform other than the USV, right. So we’re bringing that capability. We, I think, demonstrated that at sea very publicly,” he said, noting that the Navy has experimented with launching an SM-6 missile from one of its prototype vessels.

“We’re trying to make sure … to support the LUSV mission and other kinetic options,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Navy has been experimenting with a variety of unmanned surface vessels. Four prototypes have been fielded – including two Overlord platforms and two Sea Hunter vessels — and they are seeing “heavy use,” according to Moton. Three others are in construction or being prepared for testing.

The prototypes are being used to advance the PEO’s systems engineering pillars including reliable machinery plants, C4I systems, integrated combat systems, vehicle control and sensing, and autonomy.

The service is also helping with testing of developmental and prototype payloads.

Prototype robo-ships have been operating in concert with manned ships and controlled by sailors on other platforms or ashore.

“That is getting to be really very exciting. That work is helping the development of ConOps by the fleet and it’s building trust by the fleet in unmanned systems, and it’s providing feedback to our engineers and program office teams,” Moton said.

The RIMPAC exercise was a “capstone” event last year for the drones. The systems traveled a total of 15,000 nautical miles in “autonomous mode” and executed over 700 missions during the event, according to Moton.

“Some of those missions are, ‘Go from point A to point B and don’t hit anything,’ right. But … those are the building blocks. And we’re seeing a lot of success,” he said.

The Surface Development Squadron, based on the West Coast, is forging ahead with prototype projects. And the Navy also participated in NATO’s Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping with Maritime Unmanned Systems (REPMUS) exercise in September.

PEO for Unmanned Systems and Small Combatants is also keeping a close eye on what the 5th Fleet’s Task Force 59 is doing in the Middle East. The task force, which is experimenting with using AI-enabled drones and the cloud for ISR, recently reached full operational capability.

“We stayed pretty tightly connected with them, very aware of what they’re doing and experimenting. And … we are definitely getting the feedback for how it’s going and are watching them,” Moton told DefenseScoop at the SNA symposium. “It’s just as important in supporting our requirements process on what we want to field. But in terms of like the basic technology on manned-unmanned teaming, we are getting a lot of feedback from them.”

DefenseScoop asked Moton if the task force’s work was informing engineering and systems development in addition to requirements.

“I think both,” he replied. “The mission that they’re doing in 5th Fleet is an actual operational mission, right. So, we don’t want hordes of engineers roaming over everything. But we are getting plenty of feedback.”

Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro is planning to establish similar task forces in other regions, including potentially Central and South America and the Pacific, which could also inform the work of Moton’s program executive office.

“We’ll see some of the details of the new squadrons. And certainly, I’m aware and completely supportive of what the secretary is talking about. And … I’m not going to let any of that kind of unmanned operations go without us being able to get lessons learned and helping our development process,” Moton told DefenseScoop.

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Task Force 59 was launched in 2021 to accelerate the deployment of AI-enabled drones for complex maritime operations in the vast areas the Navy’s 5th Fleet covers — including bodies of water in the Arabian Gulf, Red Sea, Gulf of Oman and parts of the Indian Ocean. Naval forces are working with international military partners there to develop and deploy the world’s first fleet of unmanned surface vessels (USVs) that can capture and transmit images and data about what’s happening in those waters in real-time.

During its first-ever Digital Horizon event, which concluded Dec. 15, Task Force 59 brought together 17 commercial partners that, side-by-side, applied 15 advanced unmanned data integration and AI systems in Bahrain — 10 of which were introduced for the first time during exercise scenarios. 

“We pushed those systems to their limits from about 30 different tactical scenarios to observe their true capabilities,” Cooper, who also serves as commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, said at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium this week. 

“Suffice to say, being able to work so closely with our industry partners was a game-changer. I think it’s a great model for how we do business going forward,” he added.

During his keynote address at the SNA summit, Cooper highlighted five lessons service members learned via Digital Horizon.

The first is “we’re able to advance operating in a mesh network,” he said. 

Noting that he really just fully grasped what that term refers to over the last 9 months, Cooper said it is essentially the ability for the military to rapidly communicate and integrate in austere environments and where traditional comms might be denied — like the middle of the ocean during a war. 

“It’s a very critical capability in potential future conflicts — and every platform operating in this exercise operated as part of a mesh network,” he noted.

Leading up to the exercise, Task Force 59 spent months developing the network using a series of bilateral exercises with international partners. Early on, they conducted those exercises with Saudi Arabia, and then another bilateral exercise with Jordan and another with Israel.

“Then, we integrated with a NATO exercise in Portugal — including Starlink — iterating and learning,” Cooper said.

In about a six-week period, the product evolved to look nothing like it did in the beginning, and the team felt they’d established a functional command-and-control mesh network. At Digital Horizon, Task Force 59 officials took that work to the next level by successfully launching and operating an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) — for the first time — from a U.S. Coast Guard cutter.

“This was a significant breakthrough in further developing a resilient communications network for the unmanned systems to relay imagery, video and data to watch-standers at sea and ashore. Continuous development of this mesh network capability will be critical as we scale the integration of unmanned systems with artificial intelligence across the region,” Cooper said.

The second lesson involved the advancements in AI and data integration technologies that are currently commercially available.

“It’s fascinating how industry partners respond to design challenges for unmanned systems in different ways. Some converted traditional boats, and others designed their vessels from scratch. Both work,” Cooper said.

In his view, the systems demonstrated “incredible testament to rapid growth in the field, and very strong indicator that we are indeed on the cusp of an unmanned technological revolution.”

The task force’s third major takeaway from the exercise was the ability to operate on a single “pane of glass.”

“This is a phrase we use for describing how an operator can command and control multiple unmanned systems on one screen,” Cooper said.

He shared a video from the event showing how officials were able to apply AI to reduce the cognitive load on Navy watch-standers and help them make more-informed decisions quicker with camera-equipped drones and other capabilities.

The frame depicted different video feeds from multiple military systems operating across multiple domains — all being filtered through a mesh network. Service members were able to deploy drones to make sense of anomalies in the waters that AI tracked on the spot.

“This shows how unmanned systems combined with artificial intelligence can play a key role in detecting and disrupting illegal or destabilizing maritime activity,” Cooper said.

For his team, the fourth major takeaway was the rapid innovation that could be spurred by deeper collaboration with industry. Military officials saw software fixes within hours, and hardware updates within days, via the exercise, according to Cooper.

“Many of us have been through software changes [that take] months and hardware changes in years. So, it really is a paradigm shift,” he said.

The fifth and final lesson for the task force reinforced their belief that “every success we have is going to start and end with our people,” Cooper noted.

Inspired particularly by younger military members’ contributions to the work, he announced a brand new opportunity for junior surface warfare officers to lead task groups under Task Force 59 in Bahrain and USV Division One in San Diego.

Next month, the task force is planning to embark on a new international maritime exercise to continue to refine its capabilities. Cooper said discoveries made through it will be shared with the Navy’s other fleet components.

That “collaborative process accelerates innovation and shared learning, which really is essential to sharpening our competitive edge,” he added. 

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The USVs and enabling technologies are expected to enhance the sea service’s situational awareness in the vast bodies of water near the Middle East. The Navy and its international partners have been heavily experimenting with the tech. Last year, the sea service established Task Force 59 to help advance these capabilities.

“We’ve seen great promise in taking new cutting-edge unmanned surface vessel and tying artificial intelligence with them as a means to enhance maritime security around the Arabian Gulf,” Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. 5^th Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces, told reporters Wednesday during a meeting at the Pentagon.

The robo-ships have been equipped with cameras that can keep an eye on what’s going on and alert commanders when they detect something notable.

The Navy is keen on positioning unmanned sensors equipped with AI throughout the maritime theater.

“These platforms sit out there and they will map the pattern of life of what’s happening around them. And then when there’s something different than that pattern of life, it will alert the platform. It’ll begin to take pictures of it and send that back to a Navy command center where a human being then makes a decision on what to do about it,” Cooper explained.

“If you’re looking at this picture today in the Arabian Gulf, you know, there’s about 8,000 ships that are underway doing something. There’d be no human being that could possibly pick out that movement that’s outside of the pattern of life. But what we’ve seen is AI can do it, it’s pretty accurate. We’ve been operating these platforms for about 25,000 hours now, so have a good sense of how they how to optimize their performance,” he added.

Having those capabilities allows U.S. forces to better position themselves to respond when something happens, he noted.

However, the Navy wants to better protect the vessels’ communications from being disrupted.

“Just in the last two months, we’ve been working on developing a mesh network. So if you’re not familiar with mesh network … it’s the methodology that we use to communicate in a comms-denied environment,” Cooper said.

Data collected by USVs can be stored on the cloud where it can be accessed at the Robotics Operation Center in Bahrain. The Navy can then combine that information with other sources to get a clearer picture of what’s going on.

“We’ve used it at a rudimentary level already,” Cooper said of the new mesh network. “Operationally it’s highly effective. There’s a level of classification I probably can’t go into. But at a fundamental rudimentary level, we’re using it now. Now, it’s just a question of continuing to iterate and tweak it because it’s pretty high end, it’s a pretty high-end business,” he said.

“I like where we are and I like the direction we’re going and the speed that we’re moving with,” he added. “In our case, we’ve been leaning hard into mesh networks because it is the future and provides the most resilient communication capability, which we’re obviously going to want to have.”

Meanwhile, the Navy is growing its fleet of unmanned platforms in the region. The goal is to have about 100 USVs — contributed by the U.S. and partner nations — operating there by the end of next summer.

The Navy is leveraging commercial dual-use technology for these efforts, including Saildrone systems.

The majority of the 5^th Fleet’s USVs are “COCONO,” Cooper said, meaning contractor-owned, contractor-operated, with Navy oversight. In the near term, that will continue to be the business model.

“What it has allowed us to do is to take leading-edge technology and put it to test in the environment we work with, and very quickly figure out, is it going to work or not? Does it show promise? If it does, okay, then, you know, we’ll work with the companies and we can move faster,” he said.

The Navy and its industry partners are working collaboratively to train the artificial intelligence systems on the USVs to detect the things that commanders want to know about. The companies providing the platforms aren’t necessarily the ones providing the AI technology, according to Cooper.

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