An uncrewed hydrogen-powered autonomous surveillance airship the size of a small bus has been floating over Portuguese waters, collecting imagery of ships and other objects. The goal of these test flights is to see if this airship can provide NATO with situational awareness of the maritime domain.
The flights are part of the alliance’s annual demonstration seeking new robotic technology to boost its defenses. The airship is one of several systems that NATO is evaluating during this exercise, which is called Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping using Maritime Unmanned Systems (REPMUS) 25 and Dynamic Messenger (DYMS) 25. NATO is also trialing unmanned surface and underwater vehicles, as well as other aerial ones, as part of the exercise.
The airship being tested is made by the Finnish Kelluu company, which also operates the aircraft. It is one of about 10 that are providing imagery and other sensing capabilities for commercial and scientific purposes. With NATO already conducting maritime security missions, the company sees a potential military role for its airships to provide persistent, low-level surveillance.
The Kelluu LTA is relatively small as far as airships go, clocking-in at about 12 meters long. It can fly for up to about 12 hours at low level, the company states. They are designed to carry an assortment of sensors, including electro-optical/infrared cameras and passive systems that can detect electromagnetic emissions. Able to launch from austere locations with no runways, these airships operate “very quietly and without emissions, providing real-time connectivity without being limited by radio-link ranges (BRLOS),” company CEO Janne Hietala told us on Wednesday.
NATO officials did not want to elaborate on any particular system taking part in REPMUS25. However, they did discuss the overall goals for this demonstration.
“All of these systems require experimentation and integration into the operational environment,” Cmdr. Arlo Abrahamson, spokesperson for NATO’s Allied Maritime Command, told TWZ on Wednesday. “We want to place these systems in the hands of our operators and ensure those systems meet the operational requirements of Allied forces.”
Dynamic Messenger/REPMUS is working to bring new unmanned systems into the operational environment by gaining user feedback to spur development, Abrahamson told us. With the tests still being conducted, it is too early to say if or how an airship would be useful for NATO operations, Abrahamson noted.
Earlier this year, the alliance stood up Operation Baltic Sentry in response to several instances of underwater cable sabotage believed to have been carried out by China and Russia. In one such incident, Finnish authorities say the Russian-linked Eagle S purposely dragged its anchor across the sea floor to break undersea cables. The ship was later found to be full of spy equipment. Finnish authorities detained the ship and its crew, which you can see in the following video.
One of the main goals of Baltic Sentry is to provide additional persistent surveillance to better track vessels. That in turn is meant to ensure a quicker response to ships acting in a suspicious manner.
The case could be made that airships in general could potentially benefit from such a mission because of their long loitering and diverse sensing capabilities, as well as their efficiency. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the potential that deploying larger numbers of these uncrewed airships over a wide area can provide a drastic increase in situational awareness. This distributed approach to persistent sea surveillance using extended-endurance uncrewed systems has garnered major interest from militaries around the globe.
Overall, the U.S. and other nations are either developing or increasingly using lighter-than-air-craft for just those reasons. The Chinese spy balloon incident brought this reality to the headlines.
Additionally, China, in particular, as we have frequently noted, appears to be investing heavily in lighter-than-air technologies. A huge hangar in a remote area in the country’s northwest is a key example of this. The War Zone has been following activities at the facility, which is tied to the country’s development of high-altitude airships that could potentially gather intelligence, facilitate long-range communications, provide early warning capabilities for missile defense, or even possibly serve as launch platforms for drones and other payloads.
Balloons, airships and aerostats have a long history as surveillance and maritime patrol platforms, and transportation aircraft.
Kelluu’s uncrewed concept is a revamping of sorts of the maritime patrol role of lighter-than-air craft dating back to the First World War and widely used during the Second World War.
However, several fatal accidents and mishaps in the past have created headwind for the development and fielding of these systems.
There appears to be growing interest in the Kelluu airship.
The Finnish Air Force tested the Kelluu LTA in June. It was the first time an airship took part in Atlantic Trident 25, a two-week tactical and operational training exercise held across multiple locations in Finland.
“The airships complement high-level intelligence with low-altitude precision data and multi-sensor capabilities that support real-time situational awareness,” the Finnish Air Force stated on X at the time.
The Finnish Air Force did not provide details about what, if any, plans it has to further test or use the Kelluu airships. We’ve reached out for comment. Kelluu declined comment.
There are at least two more NATO evaluations in the works for Kelluu as well. The company’s airships will take part in NATO’s Digital Backbone Experimentation (DiBaX) in Latvia. The goal of that exercise is to “test the use of unmanned vehicles in contested environments and the application of artificial intelligence in detection and decision-making tasks.”
Kelluu’s uncrewed airship is also being gauged by NATO’s DIANA accelerator program, which is looking to find and develop emerging technology.
There is no timetable for the rollout of any of the technologies being tested by NATO. Regardless of what happens with the Kelluu airship, the alliance is clearly interested in seeing if platforms like it can help protect its member nations.
Update: 9:48 AM Eastern –
NATO’s DIANA accelerator program provided some additional details about Kelluu’s participation these NATO programs:
“NATO DIANA’s mission is to locate and accelerate novel technologies in the commercial sector that can be adapted for defense use. NATO end-users, Allied militaries, academia, industry and other partners play a key role in identifying the challenges NATO may face now and in the future.
We issue these challenges to companies and select the companies that are technologically feasible, commercially viable, and could be adopted for defense purposes. Ultimately, we want to move these emerging and disruptive technologies into the hands of the defense end-user to ensure NATO maintains its technological edge.
Kelluu was chosen for Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the NATO DIANA Accelerator programme because of the potential of their technology in a military setting. In DIANA, they have been exposed to military end-users, investors, industry representatives and had the opportunity to network and engage with stakeholders in NATO’s innovation ecosystem.
Kelluu operates a persistent aerial sensing grid of long-endurance, hydrogen-powered airships that deliver continuous intelligence for security and critical infrastructure. They provide availability and decision-quality data as a service, eliminating the need for customers to buy or maintain hardware. Kelluu’s platforms offer silent, emission-free endurance at a fraction of conventional costs, proven in Arctic and defence deployments.
Kelluu was selected to participate in REPMUS/Dynamic Messenger because they aligned with the goals and mission of the operational experiment (OpEx). NATO DIANA has a mandate to ensure a number of our innovators attend OpEx opportunities.
REPMUS/Dynamic Messenger will provide Kelluu and the other NATO DIANA Innovators with a unique opportunity to participate in operational experimentation in a live maritime environment alongside NATO Allies. Participating in military operations and exercises allows companies to iterate and move their technology closer to use in a defence setting, and ultimately, adoption by an Allied nation.
Our Rapid Adoption Service provides NATO DIANA the ability to work with the stakeholders among all the Allies that recognize a viable solution, want to follow its progress, and potentially, acquire a prototype that can then be validated. The goal is to get the technology into adoption pathways that make acquisition possible for Allied nations.”
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com