Royal Navy leads AUKUS trials of crewed and autonomous systems to track enemy submarines

The Royal Navy participated with American and Australian partners in AUKUS Maritime Big Play Pacific, a multinational experiment around San Diego examining coordinated anti-submarine operations using crewed and autonomous platforms. The October 2026 activity involved more than 40 technologies, including unmanned surface vessels, underwater vehicles, gliders and aircraft linked to naval command systems. Participants examined how distributed sensors could detect, track and share information about submarines while transmitting targeting-quality data between allied operators. The trials focused on interoperability, communications and operational concepts across the three navies, not on the formal introduction of a new fully autonomous anti-submarine fleet.