Lockheed Martin has announced a $50 million investment in Saildrone to integrate what the companies describe as combat-capable weapons and sensors onto Saildrone’s unmanned surface vehicles, with work beginning immediately and on-water, live-fire demonstrations planned for 2026, the company stated.
The partnership will focus on fitting Saildrone’s Surveyor platform with Lockheed Martin systems using an open architecture and secure command-and-control links, the company stated.
The press release cites ongoing work to integrate the JAGM Quad Launcher and notes that larger Saildrone designs are being developed to support heavier payloads, including a Mk70 vertical launch system and thin line towed arrays, according to the company.
Lockheed Martin framed the collaboration as a way to accelerate the US Navy’s adoption of autonomous surface platforms for missions such as fleet defence, undersea surveillance, reconnaissance, and strike. The company said the effort combines commercial autonomy with what it describes as “trusted” military technology, according to the company.
“Lockheed Martin and Saildrone are leading the way to answer President Trump’s call for the defence industry to act differently and leverage the strength of all of industry for our national defence. Together, we are combining the most sophisticated commercial and defence technologies to deliver a lethal naval solution at speed and scale. The nation needs this capability to maintain dominance over our adversaries, and we will deliver it,” said Stephanie C. Hill, president of Rotary and Mission Systems at Lockheed Martin, quoted in the press release.
Saildrone’s founder and chief executive, Richard Jenkins, described the move as a natural progression after a decade of autonomy development.
“For the last 10 years, we have focused on evolving the reliability, endurance, and autonomy of the Saildrone platform, which has been demonstrated in over 2 million nautical miles of active customer missions. With our technology proven, de-risked, and mission-ready, now is the right time to augment Saildrone USVs with sophisticated payloads to meet warfighter needs. This collaboration will give Saildrone the tools we need to transform the capabilities of our platforms, to include electronic warfare, anti-submarine warfare, sophisticated surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as deploying kinetic effects, all seamlessly integrated with Lockheed Martin’s trusted command, control, and fire control systems,” he said.
“Drone Wars”.
Rise of the Armchair Generals !
I could set up my boat to sail around the med without me even being there.. I could enjoy a med sailing holiday while watching Cory at home on the couch….
Ask Jim if you can borrow his wife’s hoover to clean up !!!
I got to get the wife one of those, maybe for christmas to go with the Ironing Board I got her last year.
She’s spoilt !
I did get my wife a steam cleaner for Christmas once, she loved it.
Sailing towed arrays sounds interesting, that would be a great way of having a truly silent frigate.
I wonder if Saildrone are interested in Cabot? I’m not sure what the maximum wind speed those wings could take is.
Apparently their hurricane version measured 125mph+ winds and got the Guiness record for wind speed measured by a USV – while inside of a hurricane.
Sturdy ‘lil dinghies! I suppose they must have a very deep counter weight attached to the hull, which would make sense if they’re firing missiles from such a small platform.
Can’t see them being particularly fast-on-demand though..
Spitfires are quicker !
I have been thinking about manned sailing ASW vessels for years based on quietness and range. Glad someone has caught up! I think unmanned is risky. Maybe have a small 5 man crew to fix things would be a good measure.
Shades of Nelson, who was always complaining about a shortage of Frigates.
Nelson would have a bloody heart attack If he saw the state of the RN now.
Absolutely.
‘What do you mean, accurate gunfire is possible over 20 miles and rocket projectiles are accurate over thousands of miles?’
Radar would give him a stroke, given how much trouble he had and how much resource the Navy put into scouting just to look over the horizon.
Yeah I get what you are saying, I was referring to numbers in a sarcastic sort of way.
Hell when you put it like that, Nelson would be feckin ecstatic, Imagine him reviewing the fleet at Spithead, “Wall” to wall ships as far as his eye could see.
Thankfully no docksides at Spithead, because it’s the area of sea at coordinates 50 deg 47′ 28″N and 01 deg 07′ 22″ N rather than inside Portsmouth. The sea area immediately to its west is now used for USV trials with Patrick Blackett and the like (once got overtaken by a USV and its supervising RIB on the way out of Southampton Water eastbound) and I believe it was last used as an anchorage by USS Gerald R Ford in 2022.
But yes, I think his main attitude would be shock at the capabilities of current Navy ships. I’d back any single RN frigate since the 1950s (except possibly the ones with no guns, though they did have the 40mm) to defeat the entire French fleet at Trafalgar.