Charting a Course Toward an Autonomous Drone Navy
Replacing sailors with software? How close are navies to achieving fully autonomous naval drone fleets?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and autonomous systems are rapidly changing what is possible at sea. The modern battlefield extends far beyond human crews and steel hulls; it now includes algorithms that can detect threats faster than any sailor, and uncrewed vessels that can patrol silently for weeks.
As geopolitical tensions rise and peer adversaries invest heavily in next-generation warfare, naval commanders are accelerating their efforts to integrate AI into both existing and future fleets. Whether it’s enhancing decision-making on board traditional warships or deploying entirely autonomous surface and subsurface drones, the goal is clear: to make fighting at sea more efficient, more lethal, and safer by using AI as a tool for better speed, precision, and firepower at sea.
To learn more about this topic read the linked article: Naval Drones: To Crew or Not to Crew
For this reason, the US Navy has been looking at numerous ways to incorporate AI systems into its vessels for many years.
For example, in 2024, two U.S. warships were tested with a prototype AI-powered system which was designed to filter sensor data for potential targets. If the AI deemed any unknown object to be unusual, it was highlighted to a human observer for more detailed assessment.
“The sensors that the Navy operates are so sophisticated and sensitive [they] can pick up very small things,” explains Ben FitzGerald, CEO at arms manufacturer Rebellion Defense. “But they need to be able to tell, ‘Is that a small thing that we should care about or is that a small thing that is just irrelevant?’”
Called Iris, the target-processing software has now received significant funding from the US Navy’s Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems X for further development. While the AI system itself is complex, the theory behind its application is simple, as FitzGerald explains.
“If there is something that is smaller than [a passenger jet] and moving very, very slowly, but says that it's a commercial airliner, you should be watching out for that,” he said. In the same way, vessels at sea can also act unusually, but in a way that a human staring at a screen may not notice.
“Because people are so focused on looking at all sorts of other things that they don't see the anomalous thing,” he says. “We want to identify, for humans, any ship that is traveling at 95% or greater of its top speed. And then you can start getting into things like, ‘Well, it says that it's an oil tanker, but it's going faster than any oil tanker has ever been known to travel.’ Humans should be looking at that.”
For now, the most viable option is a hybrid navy made up of a mix of crewed and uncrewed vessels.
It is a fact that even John Mustin, the president of autonomous vehicle maker Saildrone, (and a former vice commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command), accepts. “We will continue to build ships, submarines, and airplanes, no question,” he admits. “But we also know that we're going to incorporate unmanned systems, some of which are autonomous—not all are, but many of them will be. It could be as much as a third to a half of the total number of platforms. And the benefit of autonomy is they don't need to be big and you don't need a lot of people on it.”
Another alternative is a vessel design that can be both crewed or uncrewed depending on the situation.
“I think we, as industry, and we as Congress,” says US Congress representative Trent Kelly, “need to think ‘there are some platforms that can be both—can be either [crewed or uncrewed]—depending on the mission.”
While the promise of naval drones is clear—offering strategic advantages in cost, safety, and operational flexibility—the journey toward their widespread deployment remains complex. Technological limitations, logistical challenges, and ethical concerns continue to slow their integration into modern fleets. Yet progress is undeniable. As AI improves and support infrastructure evolves, uncrewed vessels will likely play an increasingly vital role in naval operations. The future of warfare at sea may not be fully autonomous just yet, but it is certainly heading in that direction.
“They're not quite at the point where they're going to allow an autonomous platform to do everything, culminating in the launch of the missile. We're not quite there with the trust level yet,” says Charles Fralick, the chief technology officer at naval drone company Leidos. “That's coming, but that requires a lot of testing to ensure the safety of civilians and other platforms that aren't adversaries. That needs extra care and attention, and it's going to take some time until the Navy is comfortable with that.”