Recently deployed alongside Italy’s Cavour carrier, the Royal Navy’s Carrier Strike Group cuts a commanding silhouette as it slices through the Mediterranean – an unmistakable show of strength at a time of escalating geopolitical volatility. This strength is soon to be fortified. As allied modern navies scope new ways of amplifying their reach, resilience and lethality, one answer lies above deck, not on it.

It’s a tantalising vision: autonomous systems that can help decision makers and operators see more, search further, strike faster – and all from the open ocean, not from fortified bases or hidden bunkers. It’s a transformation as profound as the shift to steam power or the advent of digital systems. It’s the next revolution in maritime operations – and the catalyst is airborne autonomy.

Beyond the hull: building smarter naval power

Against a backdrop of emerging threats and increased global defence spending to meet them, global naval forces are facing a familiar challenge with a new twist: how to remain lethal, lean and digitally dominant without simply building more ships. For this, they need smarter capability rather than bigger platforms.

Uncrewed systems help navies to fight harder, operate digitally and force multiply their people. Their potential – and the speed with which Front Line Commands must seize it – is articulated with some urgency through numerous strategies, programmes and frameworks, backed in the UK’s case by £4.5b of investment. If it’s a demand signal industry needs, it’s coming through 5x5.

The strategic end state, set out in the Royal Navy’s Maritime Aviation Transformation Strategy, is as time-critical as it is well-defined: “A digitally led, crewed-uncrewed operating construct that is iterative, secure and capable of delivering decisive, battle winning effect across the four RN Force Level Outputs.”

The challenge now is not just introducing new technology, but integrating it into the technological and cultural DNA of maritime operations.

Airborne autonomy’s advantage – and the barriers to reaching it

Autonomous systems can extend a quantitative difference – measured in time saved or miles gained – into a qualitative advantage that shapes how decisions are made at sea. 

Imagine synthetic eyes in the sky that can mobilise from deck at a moment’s notice, augmenting soldiers, sailors and aviators to see and act further, faster, for longer. For less, too – uncrewed technologies provide a significant saving in operating costs by many thousands of pounds per hour.

Decision makers can deploy more of them to go places humans can’t, accomplishing those dull, dirty and dangerous tasks that might otherwise put personnel at undue risk. 

But even with strategic will and investment, integration has its challenges. When it comes to airborne autonomy, these are complex and multifaceted.

There are the practical challenges: how to design, develop and deploy autonomous systems to operate in adverse conditions – high sea states, slippery decks and confined spaces that jeopardise swift, clinical take off and landing.

Then there are the technical challenges: how to integrate new platforms with legacy systems. Specifically, how to securely integrate telemetry data into wider networks to get the right information to the right people at the right time, and arm decision makers with a cohesive, 360° maritime picture.

This, in turn, depends on getting the right tools into the hands of those that need them – but slow, fragmented procurement pathways can hamper the ability to transition such tools across defence lines of development quickly, affordably and at scale.

Key enablers of airborne autonomy

These seemingly intractable challenges can’t be solved with more equipment or multiple platforms. They demand systems designed not just to function, but to fit: the moment, the mission, the operational need.

In context of airborne autonomy, this means emphasising:

• Interoperability: by working to common data standards and enabling seamless information sharing, autonomous systems can better feed data into existing combat management systems and sensor networks to bring the operational picture into sharp relief.
• Data understanding: armed with AI and edge processing capabilities, drones can process, analyse and interpret vast volumes of data in real time so operators can claw back more time. Rigorous AI implementation also lays the foundation for full sensor autonomy, essential in contested environments where operators may be denied access to the data altogether.
• Cybersecurity: systems must inculcate trust in their users and be secure-by-design at every level, with safeguards in place to ensure system integrity and performance even in denied, disrupted or degraded environments.
• Training: human-machine teaming requires a dual-track training effort that prepares people to work confidently with autonomy, and systems to learn, adapt and improve over time.

Peregrine: uncrewed in form, unmatched in impact

The promise becomes proof in systems like Peregrine – a rotary wing UAS that’s flying missions alongside crewed Wildcat helicopters above the Gulf of Oman. 

At night, when drug-and-weapon smugglers are at their most active, it’s launched from the deck of HMS Lancaster to provide persistent surveillance – a replacement for eyes that get tired, and eyes that can’t see far in the dark. Equipped with Thales’ I-Master radar, Peregrine can see as far as 180km and can monitor up to 800 sq/km of that per hour. It can alert a crewed Wildcat to suspicious activity at a moment’s notice. It’s helped the RN seize over £5m worth of heroin and methamphetamine in a single operation. 

Most importantly, it’s building confidence through reliability and operational relevance, not just performance on paper. Such confidence is earned through ongoing testing, iteration and optimisation – evident not only in Peregrine’s deployment but also in Thales’ continued experimentation with Multi-Mission Rotary Wing Uncrewed Air System (RWUAS) at exercises like REPMUS. Whether it’s trialling new payloads or advancing data exchange with different combat management systems, each iteration feeds the next, and every lesson goes straight back into testing.

The next naval revolution is now

With airborne autonomy hovering as the emerging technological force to rewrite the rules of naval power, Western allied navies stand at a precipitous inflection point. If carriers are to make room for this next generation of capability – and if personnel are to trust, adopt and operate alongside it – Front Line Commands need the right partners developing the latest, most relevant and most reliable technologies to encourage the necessary shift in both capability and mindset.

The will and intent is there. The signals, strategies and investment are loud and unequivocal. The challenge – and opportunity – for industry couldn’t be clearer: work hard, fast and together to help deliver an enduring maritime advantage, whether that’s measured in knots, altitude or attitude.

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