The Royal Navy has taken a significant stride towards a future in which fleets of aerial and surface drones range ahead of traditional warships, helicopters and jets, gathering intelligence and extending the reach of Britain’s maritime power, following a landmark exercise conducted last week.
Using a specially adapted Wildcat maritime strike helicopter, naval aircrew, drone operators and technical specialists proved, for the first time, that multiple uncrewed systems can operate in concert with conventional air and sea assets across vast distances, without losing coordination or control.
Known as Dragon Rider, the exercise put the Navy’s emerging Hybrid Navy concept through its paces, showcasing how crewed ships, helicopters and uncrewed drones might one day fight, scout and communicate as a single, integrated force. The trial unfolded across more than 200 miles of southern England, stretching from the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, through Somerset, and onto the training ranges of Salisbury Plain.
At the heart of the exercise was a new, deployable system that, for the first time, links Royal Marines on the ground directly with Wildcat aircrew, ship commanders and the drones themselves, creating a shared picture of the battlespace in real time.
The week-long programme, run by the Maritime Aviation Strike Operational Advantage Group, previously known as the Wildcat Maritime Force and based at RNAS Yeovilton, built directly on lessons learned during the earlier Eagles Eye trial in Cornwall this January. That trial marked the first occasion on which drones fed live data to Wildcat crews, enabling them to track and target a moving vehicle, a capability later carried forward to the fjords of Norway during Exercise Tamber Shield.
Dragon Rider, however, went considerably further, dramatically widening the scope of what drone operations could look like for the Royal Navy of the future.
During the exercise, a Wildcat fitted with extra sensors acted as a relay, passing data from a swarm of drones flying over southern England back to operators stationed in a central control hub at Yeovilton. In doing so, the trial substantially extended the distance at which drones can operate ahead of a ship or task group, an achievement that overcomes a long-standing limitation imposed by the range of conventional radio signals.
Personnel taking part were able to view live video feeds from several drones simultaneously, practising the identification of targets while exchanging secure messages across the network. Operators also successfully assumed remote control of drones from afar, demonstrating that genuine long-range command of uncrewed systems is now within reach.
Underpinning the entire exercise was a new, highly secure and user-friendly communications system, a Mobile Ad-hoc Network, or MANET, technology that has already proven its worth on the battlefields of Ukraine.
The success of Dragon Rider marks another confident step for the Royal Navy as it works to fold cutting-edge uncrewed technology into its existing fleet, strengthening Britain’s ability to operate at greater range, with greater awareness, and with greater resilience in an increasingly contested world.
Image: MOD Crown Copyright News / Editorial Licence.
