Through AUKUS, a trilateral security agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States in the Indo-Pacific region, partners have successfully tested several autonomous maritime systems.
During a three-week span of maritime tests in Australia, dubbed Autonomous Warrior 24, AUKUS partners worked to improve the ability to jointly operate unmanned systems, share data between all three nations and provide maritime domain awareness to help inform decision-making, the Department of Defense announced Thursday.
Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering and a 2024 Wash100 awardee, said, “Autonomous Warrior/Maritime Big Play creates a unique opportunity for our three countries to work together, which will ultimately improve operational efficiency and allow us to work more cohesively against common threats.”
“This collaborative approach enables us to reduce acquisition, maintenance, and training costs by creating economies of scale,” Shyu added.
The Autonomous Warrior 24 event featured capabilities from underwater to space systems. These systems included software-defined acoustic modems, multi-model unmanned underwater and surface vehicles and low-cost autonomous surface vehicles.
The event was a part of the Maritime Big Play initiative and continued efforts to develop AUKUS Pillar II capabilities to advance maritime awareness.
“By investing in novel and innovative capabilities directly aligned to AUKUS mission priorities, as well as making future advancements in emerging technologies like AI and Quantum, we support a more stable region — one where all nations are empowered to make their own sovereign decisions free from coercion — a world that centers on hope for the opportunity and prosperity of the future,” Shyu stated.