The United States Navy announced that the International Maritime Security Construction Force (IMSC) completed a three-day maritime exercise in the Arabian Gulf, on January 9, integrating unmanned systems. piloting and artificial intelligence in the second naval exercise in six months.
The Navy said in a statement that the IMSC’s operations task force, the Coalition Task Force (CTF) Sentinel, completed the Sentinel Shield exercise with the US Navy’s guided missile destroyer. United States USS Delbert D. Black (DDG 119) and two unmanned surface ships Saildrone Explorer from the US 5th Fleet.
“We planned this exercise to demonstrate how artificial intelligence and unmanned systems effectively increase CTF Sentinel’s maritime domain awareness to maintain maritime security in the high seas. Middle East,” said Royal Saudi Navy Captain Alamri Assem, chief planning officer at CTF Sentinel.
– ADVERTISING – CONTINUE READING BELOW –
During the exercise, unmanned systems and artificial intelligence operated in conjunction with Delbert D. Black and the CTF Sentinel command center onshore in Bahrain. Systems can help locate and identify objects in nearby water and relay visual descriptions to onlookers.
“Saildrones communicated contacts of interest and our officers on duty coordinated with the destroyer to follow up,” said US Navy Captain Brian Granger, deputy commander of the ship. CTF Sentinel said.
The CTF Sentinel previously completed a similar exercise on August 23 when the Royal Bahraini Navy vessel RBNS Ahmed Al-Fateh (P20) and the US Coast Guard patrol boat USCGC Baranof (WPB 1318) joins another Saildrone Explorer from the US 5th Fleet. The late summer event was the first time that IMSC planners designed a Sentinel Shield exercise to integrate unmanned systems.
IMSC was established in July 2019 in response to increasing threats to freedom of navigation for merchants passing through international waters in the Middle East. The IMSC’s operations arm, CTF Sentinel, was established four months later to stop state-sponsored malign activity and reassure the commercial shipping industry in Bab al-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz.
IMSC membership currently includes 11 countries: Albania, Bahrain, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States.
