UK to invest £90m in maritime drones and sensors to detect Russian submarines and protect cables

The UK will allocate £90m to unmanned systems, sensors and artificial intelligence for the Royal Navy. They will help detect Russian submarines and protect undersea cables, energy networks and vital shipping routes in the North Atlantic.

The Ministry of Defence announced this.

A framework agreement with British Ocean Infinity Solutions was due to be signed the same day. The ministry estimates the investment will support the creation of nearly 200 jobs at the company and its direct suppliers.

How the Atlantic Net system will work

The new system, called Atlantic Net, will combine maritime unmanned vehicles, underwater sensors, communications equipment, remote control and data processing. This network will be managed by the Royal Navy.

Sensors will help detect submarines and suspicious activity, while unmanned vehicles will patrol the depths. The collected data is intended to give anti-submarine ships and Astute-class submarines earlier warning of threats and a fuller picture of what is happening underwater.

Atlantic Net will be the first stage of a wider programme, Atlantic Bastion. Its goal is to create a fleet in which crewed ships operate alongside unmanned systems to search for and track enemy submarines and protect undersea infrastructure.

Some of the technologies for such surveillance have already been tested at the NATO REPMUS exercises. According to a Royal Navy statement on October 1, uncrewed boats collected acoustic data and transmitted information about underwater targets in real time.

Two autonomous vessels, 12 and 17 metres long, were trialled for towing sonar arrays and deploying automated hydroacoustic buoys (underwater microphones). The results should help determine future solutions for Atlantic Bastion.

The UK will implement the programme in cooperation with NATO allies and the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF). It aims to strengthen protection against sabotage and other hostile activity, and to support the security of the UK’s nuclear deterrent forces.

Recall, the UK became the first international partner of Ukraine whose defence companies can join Avengers Labs — a Ukrainian platform for training AI models for unmanned systems on battlefield data.

Article updated with information about Atlantic Bastion.

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