With Denmark, Saildrone logs first flag registration for naval surveillance drone

WARSAW, Poland — U.S. company Saildrone has announced that the first four Voyager unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) have been registered under the Danish flag, marking the first time the producer’s vehicle operate under a national flag.

The development comes as Saildrone is working with partners in the Netherlands, Norway and Poland to ramp up its USV production for European customers, including militaries.

Kim Løye Sørensen, the European head of business development at Saildrone Denmark, the company’s subsidiary that manages its operations in Europe, told Defense News the firm is observing a rising demand for surface drones across the continent, and is in talks with a number of navies.

“We’ve had a collaboration with the Danish Navy where we had four of our Voyager platforms … in operation for the Danish Navy for a six-month period,” Sørensen said. “Now the Danish Navy and the Danish government are in the process of creating a new contract to have more Saildrones within the Danish Armed Forces. But in the near future we also see our drones operating in different European countries in the northern part of Europe.”

Due to Denmark’s location between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, the Royal Danish Navy plays a strategic role in monitoring and safeguarding maritime traffic through the Danish Straits, a gateway between the two seas.

The 33-foot Voyager is designed for coastal surveillance and nearshore mapping missions, performing continuous maritime intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), seafloor characterization, as well as real-time domain awareness, according to data from Saildrone. Powered by an electric motor and enabled with a mapping speed of 5 knots, the USV can operate for 100 days between service stops.

Voyager USVs can perform “maritime domain awareness and the ISR for a long period of time. More than three months out in station and being out there without doing anything, just being a forwarding sensor providing the data,” Sørensen said.

In addition to the Voyager, Explorer and Surveyor platforms, Saildrone is also developing a new product, Spectre, a 170-foot USV that will join the portfolio as its largest and fastest platform that will carry weapons.

“With our Spectre platform, there will be kinetic effectors,” Sørensen said. “It’s a container-based solution. You could either have two 40-foot containers or five 20-foot containers of various payloads, including kinetics on that platform. That will be built in 2027.”

Jaroslaw Adamowski is the Poland correspondent for Defense News.

波兰华沙——美国公司 Saildrone 宣布，首批四艘 Voyager 无人水面航行器 (USV) 已在丹麦注册，这标志着该制造商的航行器首次在某个国家的国旗下运营。

这项进展正值 Saildrone 与荷兰、挪威和波兰的合作伙伴携手，加大力度为包括军方在内的欧洲客户生产无人水面艇之际。

Saildrone Denmark 是该公司在欧洲的子公司，负责管理其在欧洲的业务。该公司欧洲业务发展主管 Kim Løye Sørensen 告诉《防务新闻》，该公司注意到整个欧洲大陆对水面无人机的需求不断增长，并且正在与一些海军进行洽谈。

索伦森表示：“我们曾与丹麦海军合作，在六个月的时间里，我们向丹麦海军提供了四架‘航海家’（Voyager）平台。现在，丹麦海军和丹麦政府正在洽谈一份新合同，以便在丹麦武装部队中部署更多Saildrone无人机。此外，在不久的将来，我们还计划在欧洲北部的一些国家部署我们的无人机。”

由于丹麦位于波罗的海和北海之间，丹麦皇家海军在监控和保护通过丹麦海峡（连接这两个海域的门户）的海上交通方面发挥着战略作用。

据Saildrone公司的数据显示，这款33英尺长的“航海家”（Voyager）无人水面艇专为海岸监视和近岸测绘任务而设计，可执行持续的海上情报、监视和侦察（ISR）、海底特征分析以及实时态势感知。该艇由电动机驱动，测绘速度可达5节，两次维护保养之间可连续运行100天。

“航海家无人水面艇可以长时间执行海上态势感知和情报、监视与侦察任务。它可以在海上停留三个多月，什么也不做，只是作为前向传感器提供数据，”索伦森说。

除了 Voyager、Explorer 和 Surveyor 平台之外，Saildrone 还在开发一款新产品 Spectre，这是一款 170 英尺长的无人水面艇，它将作为其最大、最快的平台加入产品组合，并可携带武器。

索伦森说：“我们的Spectre平台将配备动能效应器。这是一个基于集装箱的解决方案。该平台可以容纳两个40英尺的集装箱，也可以容纳五个20英尺的集装箱，用于装载各种有效载荷，包括动能效应器。该平台将于2027年建成。”

Jaroslaw Adamowski 是《防务新闻》驻波兰记者。