This crewless ship is defending Denmark’s and NATO’s waters. This is how it works.

Published on 25/06/2025 - 7:00 GMT+2

As maritime tensions person accrued since Russia’s 2022 penetration of Ukraine, Denmark is investing large successful defence tech.

The Danish Armed Forces has announced it is deploying 4 uncrewed aboveground vehicles (USVs), dubbed ‘Voyagers,’ to boost surveillance capacity successful under-monitored waters.

They will beryllium operating successful Danish and NATO waters successful nan Baltic Sea and nan North Sea for 3 months, according to nan Danish Armed Forces.

“The information business successful nan Baltic is tense, and truthful it has been decided by Danish parliament and nan Danish authorities to amended nan capabilities of Danish defence, and this includes nan maritime domain and of people this includes our maritime domain awareness,” said Kim Jørgensen, nan head of nan Danish National Armaments.

Powered by star and upwind energy, they tin run autonomously for months astatine sea.

Drones are mounted connected these 10-meter-long vessels and artificial intelligence (AI) helps analyse information of nan surrounding situation nether and supra nan aboveground of nan water utilizing precocious sensors.

"So, nan vehicles [work] for illustration a truck. The motortruck carries nan sensors and we usage on-board blase instrumentality learning and AI to fuse that information to springiness america a afloat image of what's supra and beneath nan surface," said Richard Jenkins, nan laminitis and CEO of Saildrone, nan institution that makes nan ships.

The patient said nan autonomous sailboats tin support operations specified arsenic forbidden sportfishing detection, separator enforcement, and strategical plus protection.

Denmark invests large successful defence

According to a report published successful 2024 from nan Export and Investment Fund of Denmark, EIFO, 1 of nan country’s finance agendas lies successful defence successful ray of nan caller geopolitical landscape. 

The unmanned aboveground vehicles were purchased done a $60 cardinal (€51,70 million) finance information led by EIFO.

The 4 Voyagers will beryllium first successful cognition for a three-month trial, arsenic Denmark and NATO friends purpose astatine extending maritime presence, particularly astir captious undersea infrastructure specified arsenic fibre optic cables and powerfulness lines.

NATO and its friends person accrued oversea operating pursuing respective incidents, specified arsenic nan Nord Stream pipeline sabotage in 2022, nan Balticconnector state pipeline burst successful 2023, and undersea cablegram harm successful nan Baltic Sea successful 2024.

Its developer, Saildrone, is establishing its European office and operational hub successful Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen.

The American institution says nan caller subsidiary will beryllium nan hub for each European operations.

For much connected this story, watch nan video successful nan media subordinate above.

Video editor • Roselyne Min

Additional sources • AP