Autonomous Vehicles Transform Port Security as AI-Powered Defence and Attack Capabilities Advance in Parallel
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A December 2025 Ukrainian underwater drone strike on a Russian submarine in Novorossiysk demonstrated with stark clarity how sophisticated autonomous maritime threats have become, with AI likely used to identify and guide the weapon to its target through hacked harbour cameras. The incident has accelerated a shift already underway across the global port security sector, where autonomous surface and underwater vehicles equipped with AI analytics, multi-sensor fusion, and real-time edge processing are replacing legacy patrol models that deliver only episodic coverage and leave exploitable blind spots.
The Shift From Manned Patrols to Autonomous Surveillance
Rob Lehman, co-founder and chief commercial officer at Saronic, has identified the persistence gap in conventional port security as the central vulnerability that autonomous systems address. Many ports continue to rely on manpower-intensive patrols on costly manned platforms, creating coverage windows that adversaries can time their operations around. Saronic's 24-foot Corsair autonomous surface vessel is designed as a scalable, data-driven alternative capable of operating around the clock with minimal human oversight across maritime domain awareness, port and harbour security monitoring, logistics support, and environmental monitoring. Philip Lewis, director of research at Intelatus, has described ASVs and AUVs as blank canvasses that can carry flexible payload combinations for intruder detection, people trafficking monitoring, firefighting, bathymetry, environmental surveys, and algal bloom removal, with take-up fastest in major European ports including Rotterdam and Hamburg and in Asian hubs such as Singapore, though US interest in the force-multiplier effects is growing.
AI Integration and Real-Time Threat Detection
The commercial value of AI in the autonomous maritime domain is evidenced by the technology partnerships forming across platform, software, and sensor companies. Ocean Power Technologies announced a partnership with Mythos AI to integrate AI-driven autonomy software across its fleet of WAM-V autonomous surface vehicles, leveraging real-time edge processing, multi-sensor fusion, and adaptive learning for enhanced situational awareness, obstacle avoidance, and multi-vehicle coordination. Open Ocean Robotics chief technology officer Fritz Stahr has highlighted how AI analytics are transforming the field, with the company's Enhanced Horizon platform delivering real-time object detection, classification, and tracking using optical and thermal cameras, while its Underwater Listener system detects and visualises acoustic activity from ship engines, marine mammals, and underwater machinery. Sofar Ocean product marketing manager Shane Swiderek has articulated the operational imperative concisely, noting that detection only matters if it is fast enough to act on and that real-time processing at the sensor closes the gap between identifying a threat and responding to it.
Operational Deployments and Proven Use Cases
Ocean Aero's Triton autonomous underwater and surface vehicle was taken up by the Port of Gulfport in Mississippi, conducting full port scans twice a week using bathymetry, side-scan sonar, and magnetometers to produce high-resolution comparative datasets for real-time change detection. Chief executive Kevin Decker has noted the operational confidence this provides, stating that he can confirm with certainty each morning that no espionage or sabotage devices have been placed at the bottom of the Port of Gulfport, a level of assurance that cannot currently be made for major US ports including New York, Los Angeles, Houston, or Seattle. Forcys and its partners demonstrated integrated underwater and multi-domain security systems at Portland Port in the UK, where its Sentinel Intruder Detection Sonar and MARSS' NiDAR command and control platform worked in tandem to detect, track, classify, and respond to hostile events from underwater and the air. Saildrone is supplying at least 20 of its Voyager USVs to the US Navy for monitoring illegal activity along the country's southern maritime approaches, and the Navy and Coast Guard have deployed MARTAC and SAFE Boat USVs for port security demonstrations in California.
Defeat Systems and the Escalating Threat Environment
The same sophisticated technologies that support defensive port surveillance also enable offensive operations, creating a capability arms race in the underwater domain. ThayerMahan has released SeaGuard, a non-kinetic underwater defeat system designed to repel hostile AUVs and deter divers, which when combined with the company's TransparenSea, Outpost, and SeaPicket acoustic intelligence solutions provides a comprehensive detect-to-defeat chain. Chief executive Vice Admiral Mike Connor, retired US Navy, has observed that the underwater domain evolves rapidly and that threats evolve even faster, reflecting the intensity of the technological competition now underway. The use of commercial off-the-shelf hardware and software is accelerating deployment timelines, with Forcys, soon to join the Kraken group, using COTS components that have already been proven in real-world conditions and that evolve with emerging technologies, reducing the gap between capability development and operational deployment to under a year in some cases.
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This article was contributed by an external writer affiliated with our publication.
