Denmark starts first mission with US-made Saildrone Voyager maritime drones to secure Baltic Sea.

On June 16, 2025, the U.S.-based company Saildrone officially announced the operational deployment of four Voyager unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) in Danish waters for a three-month mission. The deployment, conducted in collaboration with the Danish Ministry of Defence Acquisition and Logistics Organisation (DALO), follows the launch of the first two Voyagers on June 6, 2025. These vehicles were released during an official event held at Køge Marina, attended by representatives from DALO, the Danish Defence Innovation Unit, the Royal Danish Navy Command, the Defence Command Denmark, EIFO (the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark), and Saildrone.
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The Saildrone Voyager is a 10-meter-long USV designed to conduct near-shore maritime security and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. (Picture source: Danish MoD)

This operational testing marks the first use of the Voyager platform by the Danish Armed Forces and forms part of a broader effort to evaluate unmanned maritime surveillance capabilities in areas including the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, and the European Arctic. The operation also coincides with the formal establishment of Saildrone’s European subsidiary in Copenhagen, launched earlier this year with support from EIFO as part of a $60 million funding round to expand Saildrone’s activities in Europe.

The Saildrone Voyager is a 10-meter-long USV designed to conduct near-shore maritime security and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. Its propulsion system is based primarily on wind and solar power, supplemented by a 4 kW electric motor for low-wind and near-shore operations. The vessel features a 6-meter wing height, a 2-meter draft, and a cruising speed of approximately 5 knots. With an endurance exceeding three months, the platform is capable of long-duration autonomous operations. Each Voyager is equipped with multiple sensors and data collection systems, including a NORBIT Winghead i80s multibeam sonar for bathymetric mapping up to 300 meters deep, an Innomar "medium-USV" sub-bottom profiler, and environmental sensors for measuring wind speed and direction, air temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, salinity, and dissolved oxygen. Additional onboard systems include a FLIR M364C pan-tilt-zoom camera, Furuno DRS4D-NXT radar, sub-surface passive acoustics, a Class B AIS transceiver, and satellite communication via Starlink and Iridium networks. A suite of on-board and remote AI tools supports autonomous navigation, target identification, and real-time data transmission.

The Danish Armed Forces are employing the Voyager USVs to enhance maritime domain awareness in a region characterized by increased geopolitical complexity and infrastructure vulnerability. The Baltic Sea region includes essential undersea infrastructure such as pipelines and data cables, and is bordered by several NATO and partner countries. The Voyagers will support efforts to monitor these zones amid growing naval activity and concerns related to hybrid threats. The deployment was coordinated by multiple branches of the Danish military and defense establishment, including DALO, the Royal Danish Navy, the Defence Innovation Unit, and the national Drone Center. According to statements made by Danish officials and Saildrone executives, the testing is intended to assess the operational benefits of uncrewed maritime systems in surveillance roles and their integration into national defense frameworks. The project also explores their utility in strengthening presence in difficult-to-access maritime areas where conventional patrol assets may face constraints related to cost, endurance, or availability.

EIFO’s financial backing is part of a broader Danish strategy to support the integration of advanced autonomous systems into national defense capabilities. According to EIFO CEO Peder Lundquist, the investment was motivated by the potential for Saildrone systems to support surveillance in the Arctic and to assist in protecting Danish waters from sabotage or other covert maritime activities. The decision to base Saildrone’s European operations in Denmark is consistent with this objective and includes the establishment of a new office in central Copenhagen to manage operations in the Baltic and North Seas. The Danish government sees the inclusion of uncrewed systems as a cost-efficient complement to conventional naval patrol assets. The current deployment is also viewed as a reference for future procurement and integration strategies focused on autonomous maritime systems for both national and alliance-level requirements.

Saildrone has previously tested and deployed its Voyager platform in various maritime regions, including the Arabian Gulf under U.S. Navy Central Command, where GPS jamming and spoofing have affected unmanned operations. In response, Saildrone developed and validated a multi-source localization system that enables autonomous navigation in GPS-denied environments. These systems were successfully demonstrated during the International Maritime Exercise (IMX) 2025, in which Saildrone’s Voyager was the only unmanned platform capable of maintaining persistent ISR operations in contested electronic environments. This capability is now integrated into ongoing operations under U.S. Central Command’s Task Force 59 and has supported missions such as Operation Prosperity Guardian since December 2023. Saildrone has also participated in multinational exercises including Cutlass Express, Digital Horizon, and Sentinel Shield, teaming with allied warships and coast guard units to collect maritime surveillance data, conduct mine countermeasure support, and test manned-unmanned integration in the operational domain.

In addition to defense missions, Saildrone’s Voyager platform is being used for ocean mapping projects. In 2025, two Voyager USVs were deployed to the Gulf of Mexico as part of the Florida Seafloor Mapping Initiative (FSMI), a $100 million state-funded effort led by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to map high-resolution bathymetry in state coastal waters. The Voyagers launched from St. Petersburg and are mapping the Middle Grounds, a 2,817-square-kilometer area northwest of the city. The platform’s capability to collect data at depths between 20 and 100 meters contributes to broader U.S. efforts under the National Strategy for Ocean Mapping, Exploring, and Characterizing the Exclusive Economic Zones (NOMEC), with objectives to map deep waters by 2030 and shallow waters by 2040. Saildrone has also completed mapping missions in the Gulf of Maine, where it surveyed 5,100 square kilometers in support of NOAA research, and in 2022 and 2023, the larger Surveyor model mapped 45,000 square kilometers off California and Alaska. The company is currently mapping the Cayman Islands EEZ, covering 100,496 square kilometers, and aims to complete that mission within the year.

The Saildrone Voyager is currently the only commercial USV to have received interim classification from the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), issued in November 2023 after three years of platform development. The classification allows legal operation in international and territorial waters that require vessels to be built and certified to recognized safety and reliability standards. The Voyager was the first autonomous surface vehicle built to meet ABS standards for autonomous and remote-control functions. Earlier in 2023, ABS had issued Approval in Principle for both the Voyager and the larger 20-meter Surveyor platform. The classification certifies the Voyager’s eligibility for commercial and governmental use in regulated waters and validates its structural, operational, and safety systems. The vehicle is equipped to support various missions beyond defense, including coastal mapping, scientific research, maritime safety monitoring, and infrastructure inspection. Saildrone provides full-service operations for its USVs, including transport, deployment, retrieval, and around-the-clock mission management and data analysis by trained personnel.

Saildrone continues to scale its production and expand its operational footprint. More than 100 Explorer-class USVs have been produced, and the Voyager is currently being built at a rate of one unit per week. The wing and keel are manufactured by Janicki Industries in Washington, the hull by Seemann Composites in Mississippi, and final assembly and component integration take place at Saildrone’s Alameda, California headquarters. This site, located in a former naval aircraft hangar, houses the company’s hardware engineering, manufacturing, software development, mission operations, and administrative functions. Saildrone’s global operations now cover the Middle East, Caribbean, Pacific, and North Atlantic regions, with USVs supporting U.S. Navy operations under Task Forces 59 and 4th Fleet, including Operation Windward Stack and its continuation under Operation Southern Spear. These missions involve ISR, border security, drug interdiction, and maritime infrastructure protection, with USVs relaying actionable intelligence to U.S. Coast Guard and Navy units. In addition to supporting defense and research efforts, Saildrone markets its technology as a scalable solution for continuous ocean intelligence with minimal environmental impact.