Japan joins AUKUS partners to enhance underwater communications for unmanned systems

The militaries of Japan, Australia, the UK, and US have been testing unmanned maritime systems and associated technologies including communication technologies under the ongoing Exercise ‘Talisman Sabreʼ 2025 held in Jervis Bay, Australia. (Commonwealth of Australia)

The Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) has joined the militaries of Australia, the United Kingdom, and United States to test underwater communications for unmanned maritime systems as part of AUKUS Pillar 2 efforts.

Japan's Ministry of Defense (MoD) and Australia's Department of Defence (DoD) announced on 23 July that the tests were conducted during Exercise ‘Talisman Sabreʼ 2025 held in Australia from 13 July to 4 August. The tests were part of the AUKUS ‘Maritime Big Playʼ initiative, which is a series of integrated trilateral experiments and exercises aimed at advancing autonomous maritime systems and improving interoperability between the partners.

“The AUKUS partners and Japan worked together to enhance their use of underwater acoustic communications to task an underwater uncrewed vehicle to conduct activities at sea,” the DoD said.

In addition to testing underwater acoustic communications, the AUKUS partners demonstrated their ability to remotely control each other's unmanned systems from great distances using common control technologies. For example, the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) was able to remotely transfer mission control of an extra-large unmanned underwater vehicle (XL-UUV) located in the UK to the UK Royal Navy (RN) from Jervis Bay in New South Wales, the DoD added.

The DoD said, “The integration of autonomy and greater interoperability between our forces gives our military commanders more options to protect and defend critical seabed infrastructure and sea lanes of communication.”