Koge Marina (AP) of Denmark (AP) – From a distance, they are almost like ordinary sailboats, with Danish red and white flags adorned.
But these 10-meter (30-foot) containers have no crew and are designed for surveillance.
Denmark’s armed forces provided four untowed robot sailboats called “Voyagers” for the four-month operational trial.
The ships were built by Alameda, California, which will patrol Denmark and NATO waters in the Baltic and North Seas, and maritime tensions and alleged sabotage operations have escalated sharply since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
On Monday, two travelers launched from Koge Marina, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Copenhagen. Powered by wind and solar energy, these marine drones can operate autonomously at sea. Saildrone said the vessels carry advanced sensor kits – radar, infrared and optical cameras, sonar and acoustic monitoring.
Their press conference comes after two other men who joined the NATO patrol on June 6.
Saildrone founder and CEO Richard Jenkins compared the vessel to a “truck” with sensors, which uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to provide “all pictures above and below the surface” with about 20 to 30 miles (30 to 50 kilometers) of about 20 to 30 miles (30 to 50 kilometers).
He said sea threats such as damage to submarine cables, damage to illegal fishing and smuggling of people, weapons and drugs simply because “no one has observed it.”
Saildrone is “a place to go…we didn’t have eyes and ears before.”
The Danish Ministry of Defense said the trial aims to improve surveillance capabilities in surveillance waters, especially around critical subsea infrastructure such as fiber optic cables and power lines.
“The security situation in the Baltic Sea is tense,” said Lieutenant General Kim Jorgensen, director of the Danish National Arms Department. “They will be cruising Danish waters and then they will join the two people who are practicing in NATO.
The trial comes as NATO faces a wave of losses in maritime infrastructure, including the Nord Stream Pipeline explosion in 2022 and the rupture of at least 11 submarine cables since the second half of 2023. The most recent event, January, January fiber connection cuts a fiber connection between Latvia and Gotland Island in Sweden.
The trial is also under the backdrop of transatlantic frictions – the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump threatens to seize Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark. Trump said he would not rule out military forces to participate in Greenland.
Saildrone founder Jenkins pointed out that his company has planned to do business in Denmark before Trump is elected. He did not want to comment on Greenland affairs, insisting that the company was not political.
Some maritime disruptions blame Russia’s so-called shadow fleet – tankers operating under opaque ownership aging to avoid sanctions. One such ship eagle was caught by Finnish police in December and allegedly damaged the power cable between Finland and Estonia.
Amid these concerns, NATO is building a layered maritime surveillance system that combines undeveloped surface vehicles such as Voyagers and traditional naval vessels, satellites and seabed sensors.
“The challenge is that you basically need to be in the water all the time, and it’s expensive,” said Peter Viggo Jakobsen of the Royal Defence Academy of Denmark. “For us, it’s too expensive to fall behind every Russian ship, whether it’s a warship or some sort of civilian cargo ship.”
“We are trying to build a tiered system that will allow us to constantly monitor potential threats, but it’s much cheaper than before,” he added.
