Saildrone launches a naval drone in the Red Sea resistant to GPS signal jamming

Saildrone, a US manufacturer of unmanned vessels, has integrated new protection devices on its marine drones operating in the Middle East to protect them from widespread communication system jamming in the region. The company has announced that it has successfully deployed its Saildrone Voyager, a 33-foot USV, in Jordan, equipped with new hardware and software algorithms, allowing it to operate in GPS-denied environments. “Due to regional events, GPS jamming and spoofing have hindered unmanned operational systems in the area – after extensive testing by our engineers to create a resilient positioning system, Saildrone now has the capability to operate autonomously in complex maritime environments,” reads a statement from the company. The United States Navy's Task Force 59 has used Saildrone's USVs for several years as part of experiments with unmanned systems and artificial intelligence conducted in the United States Fifth Fleet's area of operations, which includes the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea. The main challenges identified in these waters include piracy as well as arms and drug smuggling. A more recent threat to regional maritime security has been GPS interference, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), which monitors reports of intrusions in these areas. The agency has received further confirmed reports from ships experiencing jamming in the Strait of Hormuz, with disruptions lasting several hours, affecting navigation systems and requiring ships to rely on backup methods, it stated in a communication on March 10. The updates made to Saildrone's USV leverage various forms of localization to allow systems to operate without relying solely on satellite signals. The vessel conducted missions in contested environments during the International Maritime Exercise (IMX) 2025, the largest maritime exercise in the Middle East, last month. “Satellite positioning and connectivity can no longer be considered reliable in potential future conflicts,” said Richard Jenkins, founder and CEO of Saildrone. In recent years, there has been increasing pressure for US forces to train without relying on GPS for positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) information. In a 2022 article for the United States Naval Institute, US Navy Lieutenant Anthony Carrillo noted that a major vulnerability of the country's naval weapons is their dependence on GPS.