This year, that engagement — U.S. Naval Forces Central Command’s International Maritime Exercise 25 — is supplying new pathways for theater-to-theater interoperability and technology-enabled cooperation in conjunction with U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa’s Cutlass Express exercise. 

“Since Feb. 9, [IMX 25] has hit the ground running with several operational events, to include but not limited to maritime security operations, mine countermeasures, global health management, and unmanned systems/artificial intelligence,” a Navy spokesperson told DefenseScoop in an email Monday. 

Other key areas of focus in the exercise include explosive ordnance disposal, search and rescue, vessel defense, and mass casualty response. 

IMX 25, which officially kicked off from separate locations in Bahrain and Jordan on Feb. 10, is the ninth iteration of the growing event since its launch in 2012. 

The spokesperson pointed to several “highlights” on the IMX itinerary this year, such as the Command Post Exercise, which “provides commanders and deputy commanders from various nations the capability to make decisions alongside multiple partners.”

“The many different subject matter expert exchanges continue to improve our cross-organization, integration, information-sharing and de-conflict command-and-control structures across multiple nations,” they told DefenseScoop.

Previous IMX iterations encompassed similar (and similarly obscure) efforts to drive integration across the international partners’ AI and drone capabilities.

The Navy spokesperson did not directly respond to DefenseScoop’s questions regarding how those involved are jointly testing and enabling new and emerging operations with AI and unmanned systems in this iteration. They instead pointed to the Navy’s first autonomous tech-pushing unit, Task Force 59. 

“Established in September 2021, TF 59 has already been involved in several multilateral and bilateral exercises in the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command area of operations to enhance maritime security within the region. To date, it has tested, upgraded, evolved and operated with more than 23 different unmanned systems,” the spokesperson said.

As with IMX events in the past, this iteration also combined efforts with U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa’s annual Cutlass Express exercise. 

The two are linked “in that U.S. Naval Forces Central Command has provided personnel to facilitate information-sharing between maritime operations centers across both International Maritime Exercise 25 and Cutlass Express,” the spokesperson noted.

Nations involved aim to strengthen and advance their systems’ connectivity — and increase strategic coordination between the Middle Eastern, African and European theaters, where multiple contemporary conflicts are unfolding. 

“International Maritime Exercise 25 is designed to demonstrate global resolve in preserving the rules-based international order, offering a unique opportunity for participants to collaborate and showcase regional maritime security cooperation,” the spokesperson said.

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Joy Angela Shanaberger, who recently served as a senior adviser to Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks during the Biden administration, took on the CTO role at U.S. Central Command, which is headquartered in Tampa, Florida, last month.

“Joining a great team in the sunshine state,” Shanaberger wrote in a LinkedIn post, adding that she’s “ready to achieve big things together, deliberately.”

In her new job, Shanaberger is poised to play a key role in driving forward innovation efforts that have applicability across the military.

In addition to conducting operations against terrorist groups, the Iranian military and its proxies in recent months and years, Central Command is serving as a test bed for advanced technologies — including unmanned platforms, AI and machine learning, and counter-drone systems — via organizations like Task Force 59, Task Force 99, Task Force 39 and others.

Shanaberger succeeds Schuyler Moore, who served as the first-ever CTO at Centcom. Moore is now serving in an intelligence role at U.S. Naval Forces Europe headquarters in Naples, Italy, where she’s been mobilized by the Navy Reserve.

“Hat tip to Schuyler Moore for the incredible work accomplished in her tenure and setting me up for success. Looking forward to scaling up!” Shanaberger wrote on LinkedIn.

Moore wrote that the combatant command was “lucky” to have Shanaberger onboard.

According to Shanaberger’s LinkedIn profile, she previously founded a company called Boone, which she described as a “tech-acceleration company serving defense and intelligence communities with rapid tech deployment to the tactical edge.”

During the Obama administration, she served as a special assistant in what was then known as the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. The AT&L directorate was subsequently split up to make way for separate Acquisition and Sustainment and Research and Engineering directorates.

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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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In 2023, the service’s 4th Fleet — assigned to the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility — kicked off a series of experimentations aimed at integrating unmanned aerial vehicles, surface ships and subsurface vessels with manned platforms.

Less than a year into the effort, 4th Fleet Commander Rear Adm. Jim Aiken said the Navy needs better tools at command centers in order to operate the uncrewed systems, and the service will begin scouting for upgrades this year.

“One of the things that we learned is — most of the time we thought that this unmanned fleet was going to be all about robots, because in your mind when you think unmanned fleet you’re thinking of unmanned surface, air and subsurface,” Aiken said Thursday during a panel at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium. “We realized that one of our biggest challenges was at the headquarters. We have the robots and we’re making lots of progress there, but in terms of what we have at the headquarters and how we actually manage the command for it [and] how we manage that data — it’s overwhelming.”

A key issue is the vast amount of information gathered during operations. Aiken said that in an average week, operators at 4th Fleet have to manually comb through an average of 2 terabytes of data and find the most relevant information.

“We really have to use [artificial intelligence] tools to figure it out and inform the watchstanders and the warfighters,” he noted.

Much like the Navy’s unmanned task force operating in the Middle East under U.S. Central Command known as Task Force 59, 4th Fleet’s goal is to advance the Navy’s journey towards a “hybrid fleet” of manned and unmanned platforms that will bolster maritime domain awareness and overall operations.

However, while Task Force 59 focuses on broadly experimenting with commercially available autonomous technologies, work in 4th Fleet steers its efforts toward more closely integrating uncrewed capabilities into traditional organizational structures and day-to-day operations.

In addition to command modernizations this year, 4th Fleet will also look to improve integration of robotic systems across the air, sea and undersea domains, Aiken added. It plans to take systems to the eastern Pacific region to help with counter-drug and illegal fishing missions, as well as begin a collaboration with the Office of Naval Research on development projects.

“I think the biggest thing that we want to be is an organization of learning, and then also an organization of collaboration,” Aiken said. “There’s opportunities for us to share information, to learn from each other and to continue to grow.”

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“We will put more players on the field, which means ready players,” Franchetti said Tuesday during her keynote speech at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium. “Platforms that are ready with the right capabilities, weapons and sustainment, and people who are ready with the right skills, tools, training and mindset.”

Along with timely ship deliveries and improvements to maintenance practices, Franchetti said the Navy must take full advantage of unmanned systems and disruptive tech in order to ready the service for potential conflicts.

The goal isn’t to reach a specific number of manned or unmanned vessels, but rather ensuring all of the Navy’s assets are effectively contributing to an overall “warfighting ecosystem,” she told reporters after her keynote.

Like other components across the U.S. military, the Navy has made significant investments towards testing robotic platforms and incorporating them into operations. One of the most forward-leaning efforts for the sea service is Task Force 59, formed in 2021 under 5th fleet in the Middle East to help integrate unmanned systems and artificial intelligence tools that would strengthen maritime domain awareness and enhance deterrence. 

Task Force 59 reached full operational capability in early 2023, and the Navy has been experimenting more with drones and supporting technologies in the Indo-Pacific and Central and South American seas, Franchetti said.

“Now, we really need to look at what is all of our unmanned technology that we’re experimenting with?” she told DefenseScoop. “What are the concepts that we’re going to use to employ all these unmanned [systems]? How are we going to train people to work with them? How are we going to knit them together so they can augment our conventional platforms and really expand our force and the ability that we have to do things?”

The CNO also highlighted work underway at the service’s new Disruptive Capabilities Office, launched by Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro in September. The organization aims to rapidly deliver new advanced warfighting capabilities to sailors and Marines.

“I’m really excited about seeing what they come up with and how they really quickly scale good emerging technology and put that into the hands of warfighters in just a couple of years,” Franchetti said.

Her remarks at the symposium coincided with the release of a paper outlining her priorities as CNO — titled “America’s Warfighting Navy” — categorizing her focus areas into three lines of effort: warfighting, warfighters and foundations.

“We must move rapidly to stay ahead and continuously create warfighting advantages. We must think, act, and operate differently, leveraging wargaming and experimentation to integrate conventional capability with hybrid, unmanned, and disruptive technologies,” it states. “Tomorrow’s battlefield will be incredibly challenging and complex. To win decisively in that environment, our Sailors must be the best warfighters in the world with the best systems, weapons, and platforms to ensure we can defeat our adversaries.”

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On Tuesday in Bahrain, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced Operation Prosperity Guardian — a new security initiative between the United States and an undisclosed number of other nations to “jointly address security challenges in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.” Technologies being advanced by the U.S. Navy’s Task Force 59, under 5th Fleet, are in discussion to enable some of that new multinational coalition’s forthcoming activities.

Task Force 59’s role in Operation Prosperity Guardian “is currently bounded, but provides some interesting highlights” about what the unit has accomplished to date, a senior U.S. Central Command official told DefenseScoop on Wednesday on condition of anonymity.

Operation Prosperity Guardian comes in response to a series of drone and missile assaults against commercial vessels in crucial shipping lanes around the Red Sea. The weapons were launched from parts of Yemen that the Pentagon assesses is controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis rebel group. These types of attacks have intensified since Israel’s war against the Palestine-based militant group Hamas began after an Oct. 7 ambush.

The United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain — and several other countries who asked to secretly sign on — are working with American troops to collectively supply personnel, weapons and other military assets for Prosperity Guardian. 

Notably, the effort is being steered under an existing multinational maritime partnership between dozens of nations to secure the Gulf of Oman, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, which is known as the Combined Maritime Forces and includes Task Force 153. 

“Operation Prosperity Guardian is an international response to threats and actions by the Houthis to disrupt the international flow of commerce, inhibit freedom of navigation, and endanger the safety of ships and personnel affiliated with more than 35 different countries,” a Pentagon spokesperson told DefenseScoop Tuesday.

Back in 2021, the U.S. Navy established Task Force 59 as a first-of-its-kind unit that could strategically deploy and integrate uncrewed systems and AI for maritime domain awareness and deterrence pursuits. Since then, the task force has completed tens of thousands of hours operating and aggressively experimenting with unmanned surface vessels and associated technologies in waters around the Arabian Peninsula.

In response to questions from DefenseScoop this week, several U.S. government officials, on the condition of anonymity, said Task Force 59 is not preparing to operate as an element of Operation Prosperity Guardian, but that technologies it has enabled could underpin some of the multinational effort.

“Bottom line is we think the ongoing efforts demonstrate a) how Task Force 59 has successfully integrated unmanned capabilities into the traditional fleet out at [Naval Forces Central Command, or NAVCENT] and b) how it has built out a broader bench of capability that can support the efforts as needed,” the senior U.S. Central Command official told DefenseScoop on Wednesday.

They did not provide further information regarding what specific technologies may be provided.

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The task force, which falls under 5th Fleet, has been using a variety of drones and artificial intelligence capabilities to perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions in the Middle East area of operations to monitor Iranian military assets and other activity. That includes unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned surface vessels (USVs), unmanned underwater vessels (UUVs) and AI tools to enable computer vision, anomalous behavior detection, multi-system command and control, and edge intelligence

Now, the unit is testing its ability to launch weapons from robo-ships.

During a live firing exercise in the international waters near the Arabian Peninsula on Oct. 23, the task force showed that it could use an unmanned surface vessel to launch a loitering munition and hit what it was aiming for.

“During multiple firing events, a MARTAC T38 Devil Ray USV, equipped with a Lethal Miniature Aerial Missile System, successfully scored direct hits each time,” NAVCENT said in a news release Thursday. The Navy also released a video of one of the engagements.

The event was part of Exercise Digital Talon — which was conducted in partnership with U.S. Special Operations Central Command — and “constituted the first use of lethal munitions from USVs in the Middle East region,” according to NAVCENT.

The Navy is touting the initiative as an example of manned-unmanned teaming where robotic platforms and crewed systems work together to achieve military goals.

The task force “demonstrated the ability of unmanned platforms to pair with traditionally crewed ships … to identify and target simulated hostile forces at sea. The hostile forces were represented through the use of a target boat. Then, using live munitions launched from another unmanned platform, NAVCENT forces engaged and destroyed the targets,” per the release.

It noted that a human operator at Task Force 59’s Robotics Operations Center ashore was in the loop and gave the green light for the weapons launch.

“We are focused on the operational application of new, cutting-edge unmanned systems and artificial intelligence technologies,” NAVCENT and 5th Fleet commander Vice Adm. Brad Cooper said in a statement. “During Digital Talon, we took a significant step forward and advanced our capability to the ‘next level’ beyond just maritime domain awareness, which has been a traditional focus with Task Force 59. We have proven these unmanned platforms can enhance fleet lethality. In doing so, we are strengthening regional maritime security and enhancing deterrence against malign activity.”

Cooper anticipates additional exercise in the future with an “expanding the arsenal of combat-capable unmanned systems,” according to the release.

The Navy’s long-term vision for its force posture includes a “hybrid fleet” of crewed and uncrewed vessels.

The Congressional Budget Office released a report last week about the service’s latest shipbuilding plan.

“Although the 2024 plan does not include many details about the size or composition of the unmanned vessels the Navy envisions procuring, the service provided CBO with a notional plan for those purchases. Under Alternative 1, the Navy would purchase large unmanned surface vessels (LUSVs), which would probably be missile platforms operating in conjunction with large manned surface ships) at a rate of 2 per year; under Alternatives 2 and 3, it would purchase them at a rate of 3 per year,” according to the report.

“Although the Navy would probably purchase other types of systems, such as medium unmanned surface vessels or large undersea unmanned systems, the 2024 plan does not include them,” nor does it include “small expendable drones” like the ones that have been used in the Ukraine-Russia war, the CBO study noted.

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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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At the heart of this effort are three units — the Navy’s Task Force 59, the Air Force’s Task Force 99 and the Army’s Task Force 39 — which are combining AI, unmanned systems and commercial tech in innovative ways.

Each of the task forces is putting robotic platforms through their paces to see how well they can perform in real-world settings. For example, Task Force 59 is deploying a fleet of unmanned surface vessels (USV) to monitor the waters around the Middle East. Task Force 99 is testing out drones as Air Force Central Command looks to put more eyes in the sky for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. And Task Force 39 is gearing up to receive semi-autonomous ground vehicles, while also exercising new counter-UAS capabilities.

Although robotic platforms might be the most eye-catching aspect of the task forces’ activities, artificial intelligence is seen as a key enabler of what these units — and Central Command writ large — are trying to achieve.

“I think that maybe people traditionally think about hardware and unmanned systems, and it’s almost more interesting to talk about the software capabilities and algorithmic analytics that are evolving and increasingly getting integrated into our workflows,” Schuyler Moore, Centcom’s chief technology officer, said at a recent Center for Strategic and International Studies event.

The tech includes capabilities such as computer vision and data analytics to aid intelligence analysts and decision-makers.

“It’s really exciting to see these algorithmic programs in particular running in our region. And … we are increasingly learning how important it is to run these types of technology adoption efforts in theater in a live environment with live data,” Moore said. “Increasingly pushing these efforts out to the edge can be so important.”

Task Force 59

Task Force 59 was established in September 2021 under 5th Fleet and U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT).

The unit achieved full operational capability a few months ago with an armada of unmanned surface vessels — including commercially built platforms made by Saildrone and others — that are conducting ISR missions in the waters near the Middle East to help detect Iranian arms shipments and other potential problems.

“We have a bunch of different systems platforms out there with sensors, cameras that are collecting and sending [information]. Once they send that picture or video feed up to the cloud, it gets transmitted to an operation center, both ashore and at sea. So it’s connected through what we call a mesh network … and once it goes to that operation center — ashore, at sea, wherever, but typically ashore — that’s where AI really comes into play and data integration systems come into play, which is collating all of these visuals, all of this data, all this information, and then sifting through it,” Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, spokesperson for 5th Fleet, told DefenseScoop.

Task Force 59 is deploying AI with four primary functions including computer vision, anomalous behavior detection, enabling multi-system command and control, and edge intelligence.

Computer vision provides the ability for the systems and programs to interpret what they’re seeing, such as a ship or other objects in the water.

For anomalous behavior detection, “it’s not so much of just having all these pictures and video and data points — you need to be able to sift through it in real-time. And … our operators, our watch-stander humans need help in determining the needle in the haystack and what warrants operators’ attention,” Hawkins explained.

Sensors employed by the task force have already gathered around 40 million images, according to Hawkins.

“With respect to the anomalous behavior detection, we utilize AI to help establish a pattern of life — what is the norm for this particular area, at this particular time of day, year, under these circumstances, based on historical data gathered. Because we use AI to leverage both open-source information available online, and also make sense of and establish a pattern through the data it’s collecting, on any given day, from the systems we have out there,” he said.

If a USV equipped with AI sees something of concern, it can transmit those images or video to a watchstander at an operation center where humans can decide what to do next.

To facilitate command and control, artificial intelligence technology enables the drones to move around on their own without a human having to direct each of them remotely.

“We’re not trying to have multiple operators managing a system or … one to one. We’re trying to have one operator overseeing multiple unmanned systems, and the way in which you do that is the use of artificial intelligence” Hawkins said.

Edge intelligence is an area where the Navy is trying to make more progress, he noted. That was a major area of focus during the International Maritime Exercise 2023, which wrapped up in March.

“In a communications denied or degraded environment where some nodes may be taken out, or the pipeline through which you funnel and transmit data may be narrow for whatever reason, it doesn’t make sense to have these systems that are out there and their sensors just sending everything and thereby clogging a more narrow throughput,” Hawkins said.

To address that issue, “you push the AI out to the edge, you push the AI out to the platforms themselves. And based on what the platforms are seeing and what the sensors are picking up, a determination is made at that point what [data or imagery] to actually send back, what is relevant, what to actually send to that cloud and get it to the operation center or ship where the decision-makers are looking to glean what to do based on what warrants their attention,” he added.

In addition to its regular operations, Task Force 59 continues to explore the technology through major exercises such as the recently conducted IMEX and Digital Horizon, which was held late last year and brought together 17 commercial partners and 15 advanced unmanned and AI-enabled systems in Bahrain — 10 of which were introduced for the first time.

“We pushed those systems to their limits from about 30 different tactical scenarios to observe their true capabilities,” Vice Adm. Cooper, commander of 5th Fleet and NAVCENT, said at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium in January.

Meanwhile, the task force continues to expand. Later this year, 5th Fleet aims to have more than 100 USVs — including systems contributed by international partners — conducting operations.

“Today, we are operating platforms equipped with sensors, radars and cameras for many uses including navigation, data collection, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. These new data flows enhance our ability to persistently monitor the surrounding seas and enable leaders to be more predictive and precise in deploying our crewed assets,” Cooper said in January. In the not-too-distant future, the Navy envisions deploying these systems “to support warfighting missions across the entire spectrum of joint functions,” he noted.

In April. at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference in April, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro announced that the technologies and operational concepts being explored by Task Force 59 will be expanded to 4th Fleet under U.S. Southern Command this summer. He has also suggested that they will eventually be rolled out to other regions including the Indo-Pacific.

At the same event, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday also noted that the service is moving to “normalize” the introduction of unmanned forces into the fleet by integrating them into existing command structures.

Task Force 99

Task Force 99 was stood up in October under Air Forces Central (AFCENT), the air component of Centcom, to evaluate unmanned aerial systems and other enabling technologies that could aid ISR and other missions.

“Don’t think of it as an innovation lab or anything like that. It is a no-kidding operational task force … They’re just doing it with different stuff and really getting after these problems,” Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, commander of AFCENT, said in February at an Air and Space Forces Association event.

“We have three lines of effort that we are going after, and those lines of effort are increasing air domain awareness, locating hard-to-detect mobile targets, and creating dilemmas and costs for the adversary,” Col. Rob Smoker, commander of the task force, told DefenseScoop in a recent interview.

Right now, the unit is mostly experimenting with smaller systems that fall into the Group 1 and Group 2 part of the UAS spectrum. That includes what Smoker described as a small, long-endurance system that the task force tested out during the International Maritime Exercise that recently wrapped up.

Factors like endurance, range, payload capacity and noise generation are key considerations for evaluating the drones that the unit is using, he noted.

However, the organization isn’t just looking at platforms. It’s also evaluating sensors and other payloads and conducting “tech scans” for new capabilities like AI.

“We’re looking at capabilities across the board,” Smoker said, as the task force seeks to satisfy requirements and solve “operational problems” for ISR and other missions.

The unit is eyeing artificial intelligence to aid targeting.

“Some of the things that we look for in AI are … recognition — be able to, you know, point out something to an analyst,” Smoker said. “We also look at AI … being able to go out and being able to scan an area and automatically find targets and things like that, in order to be able to pass that [information] back along, too, and be able to find those and get them back into the [targeting] cycle.”

AI could be used to find adversaries’ hard-to-detect systems such as missile launchers, according to Grynkewich, who noted that finding Iraqi Scud missiles was a major challenge during the Gulf War.

“This is another place where I think we can do some experimentation in the AFCENT region that would apply to the Indo-Pacific,” he told DefenseScoop during a meeting with reporters at AFA’s Warfare Symposium in March.

“We’re trying to go, ‘What does it look like now today? How do we go and find these beforehand?’ We have in place today algorithms that we’re training to identify ballistic missile launch vehicles, and to try to do that in near real-time as possible and feeding as much imagery as we can — whether that’s on orbit, commercial imagery, or exquisite NGA imagery or imagery off these drones,” he said.

Task Force 99 began its initial operational evaluations of unmanned aerial systems earlier this year.

“I won’t say the exact number, but we have evaluated a few. And yeah, we continue to bring capability into theater,” Smoker said. He declined to identify the specific systems or the companies that built them.

DefenseScoop asked Smoker if the task force is also pondering arming these systems or giving them other missions besides ISR.

“You can imagine that there are other things that we are doing,” he replied.

Meanwhile, there will be another exercise later this year named Armada, that Task Force 99 will be supporting in conjunction with the Navy’s Task Force 59, according to Smoker.

“It’s going to be, you know, basically looking at the integration of unmanned platforms, integrating the platforms and things across the board,” he said.

Smoker declined to disclose the size of Task Force 99, except to say that it’s currently a “small unit” but “we continue to grow.”

Air Force officials have also declined to say how many unmanned systems the task force aims to bring into the fold. However, in explaining the broader vision for how these types of platforms could be employed, Grynkewich suggested the service is looking to ramp up.

“Rather than just having dozens of airplanes that I can fly to certain locations, what if I had hundreds? … That capacity is gonna matter when we’re prosecuting operations at scale,” he said.

Smoker said: “We continue to, you know, work with our partners to grow the team and then grow our capabilities in theater … And we hope to, you know, take a lot of lessons learned and be able to provide ‘Big Air Force’ a framework for the future.”

Task Force 39

Task Force 39 was established under U.S. Army Central (ARCENT) in November. Its main goals are to identify gaps, find potential solutions and then put them through their paces in theater, according to Col. Ryan Stamatis, the commander of the new unit.

The task force wants to “experiment and train so we can test those solutions out and see if they’re a good fit for us. You know, how does it work out? Do we like it, do we not like it? Can we tweak it, can we modify it? Let’s make it better,” he told DefenseScoop in a recent interview. “You gotta go play with it, you got to touch it, break it, improve it, fix it, and then modify it to your needs and to your environment and to your unit. So that’s kind of where we are right now.”

A big focus for Stamatis — as well as Centcom and the Army writ large — is being “data-centric.”

“We have more data than we can possibly consume and digest and really kind of analyze and synthesize. So you’ve got to rely on machines, you know, the AI/ML aspect of those tools we bring,” he said. “We’re trying to utilize those tools, whether it’s the intel side, the logistics side, the targeting side, the operational side … you bring that data, you know, to the right place, right time, so the commanders can make the decisions with the best information available … be predictive and have that advantage over anybody we would possibly face.”

Eyeing robotic platforms, Task Force 39 is getting ready to help ARCENT experiment with autonomous transport vehicles that the Army has been building.

“We are in the process of bringing this into theater right now. It’ll be there in June timeframe. And we’ll start experiments and testing and training on it in July. But this vehicle has the ability to really increase our logistic capacity,” he said. “You can increase the number of vehicles being used to push logistics around the theater with less soldiers behind the wheel — therefore less soldiers are at risk … It’d be the first time for us to bring it to theater, train soldiers and experiment on it within theater.”

The task force has also been heavily involved in the Red Sands counter-drone technology initiative with Saudi Arabian partners.

The most recent Red Sands experiment occurred in March. That included a new app that can be used to feed information to military air-defense systems. The concept is similar to Ukraine’s ePPO initiative.

“What the Ukrainians did, they built a cellphone application … that basically helps the Ukrainian military identify aerial threats. Where the citizens with a cell phone can take a picture of a UAS, a missile, [or] whatever is flying, and transmit data back to an operational center to help augment, you know, kind of radar data they may be collecting there at the Ukrainian level. So that’s kind of the concept,” Stamatis explained.

Centcom began developing a similar app and “we’ve taken the application to ARCENT and continue to refine it and experiment with that,” he said.

Additional testing of the technology, known as CARPE DRONVM, was slated for May.

The aim is to “help operationalize that in a broader way across the theater, within the military and beyond,” Stamatis said.

Another Red Sands exercise is scheduled for September.

“We’re also looking at increasing complexity of this, growing into more of a joint model exercise. You know, bring other components in here as well — the other task forces and, you know, AFCENT, NAVCENT, MARCENT in there to … further test and refine counter-UAS technologies and tools out there,” he said.

Task Force is “looking at the digital aspect of everything,” Stamatis added.

“We conduct, you know, almost at least biweekly exercises at the local level, connecting all those different platforms and tools together, and just run the processes through and refine our processes and … make sure the connectivity and the data is flowing properly and how we want it to,” he said.

Stamatis highlighted an upcoming Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) event called Digital Falcon, which will include artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.

“In June, we’ll run a larger kind of Centcom-level exercise on the digital side of the house, that are really connected to all the data flows and the AI/ML tools we’re using, from a large [combatant command] joint perspective,” he added. “That will be really exciting as we kind of expand, you know, the different warfighting functions we have that are plugging into the AI/ML kind of toolsets to improve our data and our understanding.”

Meanwhile, the task force is working with industry to find promising artificial intelligence solutions.

“We want something that is near ready or ready to go,” he noted. The unit will be “using the algorithms from industry that are near ready, that we continue to feed and improve — you know, you do your labeling, do your testing, you improve that algorithm and train the algorithm over time. So that’s kind of where we are.”

Seven personnel currently make up the core of Task Force 39. However, its work ultimately involves “the entire ARCENT command structure,” as well as other components of the military and partners in industry and academia, he noted.

“That’s where we kind of come in as the backbone and help others connect the ideas that they come up with, from the ground up, who are close to the problems and have the best solution,” he said.

The unit is also getting ready to hire a senior civilian with a strong tech background and expertise to assist them. That move follows Centcom’s recent hiring of former Google Cloud leader Andrew Moore as the command’s first-ever adviser for artificial intelligence, robotics, cloud computing and data analytics.

Stamatis said the work that Task Force 39 is doing under Centcom could ultimately aid U.S. forces in other regions of the world.

“We can take a lot of what we do experiment-wise in that [combatant command’s] environment, which is realistic, and under harsh conditions, and take the lessons learned that we get and pass it across to our sister components and our sister services across the board to help them do their jobs as they try and prepare” for future conflicts, he said.

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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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