Denmark Deploys AI-Powered Robotic Sailboats for Maritime Surveillance Amid Rising Tensions

Denmark tests unmanned robotic sailboat fleet with tensions high in the region

KOGE MARINA, Denmark (AP) -- From a distance they look almost like ordinary sailboats, their sails emblazoned with the red-and-white flag of Denmark. But these 10-meter-long (30-foot-long) vessels carry no crew and are designed for surveillance. Four uncrewed robotic sailboats, known as "Voyagers," have been put into service by Denmark's armed forces for a three-month operational trial. Built by Alameda, California-based company Saildrone, the vessels will patrol Danish and NATO waters in the Baltic and North Seas, where maritime tensions and suspected sabotage have escalated sharply since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Two of the Voyagers launched Monday from Koge Marina, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Copenhagen. Powered by wind and solar energy, these sea drones can operate autonomously for months at sea. Saildrone says the vessels carry advanced sensor suites -- radar, infrared and optical cameras, sonar and acoustic monitoring. Their launch comes after two others already joined a NATO patrol on June 6. Saildrone founder and CEO Richard Jenkins compared the vessels to a "truck" that carries sensors and uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to give a "full picture of what's above and below the surface" to about 20 to 30 miles (30 to 50 kilometers) in the open ocean. He said that maritime threats like damage to undersea cables, illegal fishing and the smuggling of people, weapons and drugs are going undetected simply because "no one's observing it." Saildrone, he said, is "going to places ... where we previously didn't have eyes and ears." The Danish Defense Ministry says the trial is aimed at boosting surveillance capacity in under-monitored waters, especially around critical undersea infrastructure such as fiber-optic cables and power lines. "The security situation in the Baltic is tense," said Lt. Gen. Kim Jørgensen, the director of Danish National Armaments at the ministry. "They're going to cruise Danish waters, and then later they're going to join up with the two that are on (the) NATO exercise. And then they'll move from area to area within the Danish waters." The trial comes as NATO confronts a wave of damage to maritime infrastructure -- including the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions and the rupture of at least 11 undersea cables since late 2023. The most recent incident, in January, severed a fiber-optic link between Latvia and Sweden's Gotland island. The trial also unfolds against a backdrop of trans-Atlantic friction -- with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration threatening to seize Greenland, a semiautonomous territory belonging to Denmark, a NATO ally. Trump has said he wouldn't rule out military force to take Greenland. Jenkins, the founder of Saildrone, noted that his company had already planned to open its operation in Denmark before Trump was reelected. He didn't want to comment on the Greenland matter, insisting the company isn't political. Some of the maritime disruptions have been blamed on Russia's so-called shadow fleet -- aging oil tankers operating under opaque ownership to avoid sanctions. One such vessel, the Eagle S, was seized by Finnish police in December for allegedly damaging a power cable between Finland and Estonia with its anchor. Amid these concerns, NATO is moving to build a layered maritime surveillance system combining uncrewed surface vehicles like the Voyagers with traditional naval ships, satellites and seabed sensors. "The challenge is that you basically need to be on the water all the time, and it's humongously expensive," said Peter Viggo Jakobsen of the Royal Danish Defence College. "It's simply too expensive for us to have a warship trailing every single Russian ship, be it a warship or a civilian freighter of some kind." "We're trying to put together a layered system that will enable us to keep constant monitoring of potential threats, but at a much cheaper level than before," he added.

Denmark to deploy 'saildrones' in Baltic to protect undersea cables from Russian threat

US-made vessels will monitor maritime activity as part of military trial amid criticism over deepening ties with American tech firms Denmark is deploying floating drones on the Baltic Sea to protect undersea infrastructure and bolster maritime surveillance amid the growing threat of hybrid attacks from Russia. The arrival of Saildrone, a California-based company, has prompted criticism in Denmark over forging tighter bonds with the US in such a sensitive area as digital security. The backlash comes amid rapidly changing alliances, evolving technology and ongoing tensions between Copenhagen and Washington after Donald Trump threatened to take over Greenland, which is part of the Danish kingdom. The 10-metre unmanned vessels, known as "saildrones", resemble sailing boats but are designed solely to collect data. Using onboard AI, saildrones compile data using multiple sensors, cameras and radar to produce a more detailed picture of maritime activity than satellites can provide. The company has previously worked with the US navy, which used its vessels to support counter-drug trafficking and illegal fishing operations. Its arrival in Denmark marks the first time it has been used for defence purposes in European waters. "The purpose of Saildrone is to give eyes and ears where we previously didn't have eyes and ears," said Richard Jenkins, CEO of Saildrone. As concerns grow over Russia's so-called shadow fleet - ageing tankers used to circumvent sanctions by transporting crude oil to China and India - saildrones can be used to verify vessel identification and flag unusual movements that may point to undersea sabotage of pipelines or data cables. "What we're seeing now is commercial shipping fleets being used in military applications," said Jenkins. "So whether it's the shadow fleet for Russia trafficking illegal supplies that is getting around sanctions or whether they are trying to do nefarious things like damage infrastructure, we need to be able to track that." The Danish armed forces are deploying four saildrones in the Baltic for operational testing to improve its capacity for maritime surveillance and intelligence gathering. However, the partnership has raised concerns among Denmark's tech leaders. The software engineer and entrepreneur, David Heinemeier Hansson, told Danish broadcaster DR: "The problem with American companies is that they have to follow American law, American decrees and the American president. He can demand data at any time, and he can close an account at any time." Jacob Herbst, head of the Danish Cybersecurity Council, said: "With the international situation we are currently seeing, you obviously have to think very carefully when choosing American suppliers in this area." Jenkins said they are not getting classified data in Denmark and that data is fully encrypted. The floating drones can be powered by diesel, wind and solar and can remain at sea for over a year but their average deployment is 100 days. Between 10 and 20 saildrones would be needed to cover the whole of the Baltic.

Why the Danish military is using these crewless vessels in the North and Baltic Seas

Four robotic sailboats, designed by California company Saildrone, are on a three-month operational trial to patrol NATO waters. From a distance they look almost like ordinary sailboats, their sails emblazoned with the red-and-white flag of Denmark. But these 10-meter (30-foot) -long vessels carry no crew and are designed for surveillance. Four uncrewed robotic sailboats, known as "Voyagers," have been put into service by Denmark's armed forces for a three-month operational trial. Built by Alameda, California-based company Saildrone, the vessels will patrol Danish and NATO waters in the Baltic and North Seas, where maritime tensions and suspected sabotage have escalated sharply since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Two of the Voyagers launched Monday from Koge Marina, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the Danish capital, Copenhagen. Powered by wind and solar energy, these sea drones can operate autonomously for months at sea. Saildrone says the vessels carry advanced sensor suites -- radar, infrared and optical cameras, sonar and acoustic monitoring. Their launch comes after two others already joined a NATO patrol on June 6. Saildrone founder and CEO Richard Jenkins compared the vessels to a "truck" that carries sensors and uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to give a "full picture of what's above and below the surface" to about 20 to 30 miles (30 to 50 kilometers) in the open ocean. He said that maritime threats like damage to undersea cables, illegal fishing and the smuggling of people, weapons and drugs are going undetected simply because "no one's observing it." Saildrone, he said, is "going to places . . . where we previously didn't have eyes and ears." The Danish Defense Ministry says the trial is aimed at boosting surveillance capacity in under-monitored waters, especially around critical undersea infrastructure such as fiber-optic cables and power lines. "The security situation in the Baltic is tense," said Lt. Gen. Kim Jørgensen, the director of Danish National Armaments at the ministry. "They're going to cruise Danish waters, and then later they're going to join up with the two that are on (the) NATO exercise. And then they'll move from area to area within the Danish waters." The trial comes as NATO confronts a wave of damage to maritime infrastructure -- including the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions and the rupture of at least 11 undersea cables since late 2023. The most recent incident, in January, severed a fiber-optic link between Latvia and Sweden's Gotland island. The trial also unfolds against a backdrop of trans-Atlantic friction -- with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration threatening to seize Greenland, a semiautonomous territory belonging to Denmark, a NATO member. Trump has said he wouldn't rule out military force to take Greenland. Jenkins, the founder of Saildrone, noted that his company had already planned to open its operation in Denmark before Trump was reelected. He didn't want to comment on the Greenland matter, insisting the company isn't political. Some of the maritime disruptions have been blamed on Russia's so-called shadow fleet -- aging oil tankers operating under opaque ownership to avoid sanctions. One such vessel, the Eagle S, was seized by Finnish police in December for allegedly damaging a power cable between Finland and Estonia with its anchor. Western officials accuse Russia of behind behind a string of hybrid war attacks on land and at sea. Amid these concerns, NATO is moving to build a layered maritime surveillance system combining uncrewed surface vehicles like the Voyagers with traditional naval ships, satellites and seabed sensors. "The challenge is that you basically need to be on the water all the time, and it's humongously expensive," said Peter Viggo Jakobsen of the Royal Danish Defense College. "It's simply too expensive for us to have a warship trailing every single Russian ship, be it a warship or a civilian freighter of some kind." "We're trying to put together a layered system that will enable us to keep constant monitoring of potential threats, but at a much cheaper level than before," he added.

Denmark tests unmanned robotic sailboat fleet with tensions high in the region

KOGE MARINA, Denmark (AP) -- From a distance they look almost like ordinary sailboats, their sails emblazoned with the red-and-white flag of Denmark. But these 10-meter-long (30-foot-long) vessels carry no crew and are designed for surveillance. Four uncrewed robotic sailboats, known as "Voyagers," have been put into service by Denmark's armed forces for a three-month operational trial. Built by Alameda, California-based company Saildrone, the vessels will patrol Danish and NATO waters in the Baltic and North Seas, where maritime tensions and suspected sabotage have escalated sharply since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Two of the Voyagers launched Monday from Koge Marina, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Copenhagen. Powered by wind and solar energy, these sea drones can operate autonomously for months at sea. Saildrone says the vessels carry advanced sensor suites -- radar, infrared and optical cameras, sonar and acoustic monitoring. Their launch comes after two others already joined a NATO patrol on June 6. Saildrone founder and CEO Richard Jenkins compared the vessels to a "truck" that carries sensors and uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to give a "full picture of what's above and below the surface" to about 20 to 30 miles (30 to 50 kilometers) in the open ocean. He said that maritime threats like damage to undersea cables, illegal fishing and the smuggling of people, weapons and drugs are going undetected simply because "no one's observing it." Saildrone, he said, is "going to places ... where we previously didn't have eyes and ears." The Danish Defense Ministry says the trial is aimed at boosting surveillance capacity in under-monitored waters, especially around critical undersea infrastructure such as fiber-optic cables and power lines. "The security situation in the Baltic is tense," said Lt. Gen. Kim Jørgensen, the director of Danish National Armaments at the ministry. "They're going to cruise Danish waters, and then later they're going to join up with the two that are on (the) NATO exercise. And then they'll move from area to area within the Danish waters." The trial comes as NATO confronts a wave of damage to maritime infrastructure -- including the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions and the rupture of at least 11 undersea cables since late 2023. The most recent incident, in January, severed a fiber-optic link between Latvia and Sweden's Gotland island. The trial also unfolds against a backdrop of trans-Atlantic friction -- with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration threatening to seize Greenland, a semiautonomous territory belonging to Denmark, a NATO ally. Trump has said he wouldn't rule out military force to take Greenland. Jenkins, the founder of Saildrone, noted that his company had already planned to open its operation in Denmark before Trump was reelected. He didn't want to comment on the Greenland matter, insisting the company isn't political. Some of the maritime disruptions have been blamed on Russia's so-called shadow fleet -- aging oil tankers operating under opaque ownership to avoid sanctions. One such vessel, the Eagle S, was seized by Finnish police in December for allegedly damaging a power cable between Finland and Estonia with its anchor. Amid these concerns, NATO is moving to build a layered maritime surveillance system combining uncrewed surface vehicles like the Voyagers with traditional naval ships, satellites and seabed sensors. "The challenge is that you basically need to be on the water all the time, and it's humongously expensive," said Peter Viggo Jakobsen of the Royal Danish Defence College. "It's simply too expensive for us to have a warship trailing every single Russian ship, be it a warship or a civilian freighter of some kind." "We're trying to put together a layered system that will enable us to keep constant monitoring of potential threats, but at a much cheaper level than before," he added.

Denmark tests unmanned robotic sailboat fleet with tensions high in the region

KOGE MARINA, Denmark -- From a distance they look almost like ordinary sailboats, their sails emblazoned with the red-and-white flag of Denmark. But these 10-meter-long (30-foot-long) vessels carry no crew and are designed for surveillance. Four uncrewed robotic sailboats, known as "Voyagers," have been put into service by Denmark's armed forces for a three-month operational trial. Built by Alameda, California-based company Saildrone, the vessels will patrol Danish and NATO waters in the Baltic and North Seas, where maritime tensions and suspected sabotage have escalated sharply since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Two of the Voyagers launched Monday from Koge Marina, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Copenhagen. Powered by wind and solar energy, these sea drones can operate autonomously for months at sea. Saildrone says the vessels carry advanced sensor suites -- radar, infrared and optical cameras, sonar and acoustic monitoring. Their launch comes after two others already joined a NATO patrol on June 6. Saildrone founder and CEO Richard Jenkins compared the vessels to a "truck" that carries sensors and uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to give a "full picture of what's above and below the surface" to about 20 to 30 miles (30 to 50 kilometers) in the open ocean. He said that maritime threats like damage to undersea cables, illegal fishing and the smuggling of people, weapons and drugs are going undetected simply because "no one's observing it." Saildrone, he said, is "going to places ... where we previously didn't have eyes and ears." The Danish Defense Ministry says the trial is aimed at boosting surveillance capacity in under-monitored waters, especially around critical undersea infrastructure such as fiber-optic cables and power lines. "The security situation in the Baltic is tense," said Lt. Gen. Kim Jørgensen, the director of Danish National Armaments at the ministry. "They're going to cruise Danish waters, and then later they're going to join up with the two that are on (the) NATO exercise. And then they'll move from area to area within the Danish waters." The trial comes as NATO confronts a wave of damage to maritime infrastructure -- including the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions and the rupture of at least 11 undersea cables since late 2023. The most recent incident, in January, severed a fiber-optic link between Latvia and Sweden's Gotland island. The trial also unfolds against a backdrop of trans-Atlantic friction -- with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration threatening to seize Greenland, a semiautonomous territory belonging to Denmark, a NATO ally. Trump has said he wouldn't rule out military force to take Greenland. Jenkins, the founder of Saildrone, noted that his company had already planned to open its operation in Denmark before Trump was reelected. He didn't want to comment on the Greenland matter, insisting the company isn't political. Some of the maritime disruptions have been blamed on Russia's so-called shadow fleet -- aging oil tankers operating under opaque ownership to avoid sanctions. One such vessel, the Eagle S, was seized by Finnish police in December for allegedly damaging a power cable between Finland and Estonia with its anchor. Amid these concerns, NATO is moving to build a layered maritime surveillance system combining uncrewed surface vehicles like the Voyagers with traditional naval ships, satellites and seabed sensors. "The challenge is that you basically need to be on the water all the time, and it's humongously expensive," said Peter Viggo Jakobsen of the Royal Danish Defence College. "It's simply too expensive for us to have a warship trailing every single Russian ship, be it a warship or a civilian freighter of some kind." "We're trying to put together a layered system that will enable us to keep constant monitoring of potential threats, but at a much cheaper level than before," he added.

Danish military using robotic sailboats for surveillance in Baltic and North seas

KOGE MARINA, Denmark -- From a distance they look almost like ordinary sailboats, their sails emblazoned with the red-and-white flag of Denmark. But these 10-meter (30-foot) -long vessels carry no crew and are designed for surveillance. Four uncrewed robotic sailboats, known as "Voyagers," have been put into service by Denmark's armed forces for a three-month operational trial. Built by Alameda, California-based company Saildrone, the vessels will patrol Danish and NATO waters in the Baltic and North Seas, where maritime tensions and suspected sabotage have escalated sharply since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Two of the Voyagers launched Monday from Koge Marina, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the Danish capital, Copenhagen. Powered by wind and solar energy, these sea drones can operate autonomously for months at sea. Saildrone says the vessels carry advanced sensor suites -- radar, infrared and optical cameras, sonar and acoustic monitoring. Their launch comes after two others already joined a NATO patrol on June 6. Saildrone founder and CEO Richard Jenkins compared the vessels to a "truck" that carries sensors and uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to give a "full picture of what's above and below the surface" to about 20 to 30 miles (30 to 50 kilometers) in the open ocean. He said that maritime threats like damage to undersea cables, illegal fishing and the smuggling of people, weapons and drugs are going undetected simply because "no one's observing it." Saildrone, he said, is "going to places ... where we previously didn't have eyes and ears." The Danish Defense Ministry says the trial is aimed at boosting surveillance capacity in under-monitored waters, especially around critical undersea infrastructure such as fiber-optic cables and power lines. "The security situation in the Baltic is tense," said Lt. Gen. Kim Jørgensen, the director of Danish National Armaments at the ministry. "They're going to cruise Danish waters, and then later they're going to join up with the two that are on (the) NATO exercise. And then they'll move from area to area within the Danish waters." The trial comes as NATO confronts a wave of damage to maritime infrastructure -- including the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions and the rupture of at least 11 undersea cables since late 2023. The most recent incident, in January, severed a fiber-optic link between Latvia and Sweden's Gotland island. The trial also unfolds against a backdrop of trans-Atlantic friction -- with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration threatening to seize Greenland, a semiautonomous territory belonging to Denmark, a NATO member. Trump has said he wouldn't rule out military force to take Greenland. Jenkins, the founder of Saildrone, noted that his company had already planned to open its operation in Denmark before Trump was reelected. He didn't want to comment on the Greenland matter, insisting the company isn't political. Some of the maritime disruptions have been blamed on Russia's so-called shadow fleet -- aging oil tankers operating under opaque ownership to avoid sanctions. One such vessel, the Eagle S, was seized by Finnish police in December for allegedly damaging a power cable between Finland and Estonia with its anchor. Western officials accuse Russia of behind behind a string of hybrid war attacks on land and at sea. Amid these concerns, NATO is moving to build a layered maritime surveillance system combining uncrewed surface vehicles like the Voyagers with traditional naval ships, satellites and seabed sensors. "The challenge is that you basically need to be on the water all the time, and it's humongously expensive," said Peter Viggo Jakobsen of the Royal Danish Defense College. "It's simply too expensive for us to have a warship trailing every single Russian ship, be it a warship or a civilian freighter of some kind." "We're trying to put together a layered system that will enable us to keep constant monitoring of potential threats, but at a much cheaper level than before," he added.