AUKUS partners make waves in acoustic communication testing

Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have jointly tested their ability to communicate with underwater autonomous systems at Exercise Talisman Sabre 2025, as part of AUKUS Pillar II’s EX Maritime Big Play series – formerly EX Autonomous Warrior, said Defence in a statement. Japan also joined these activities as a participant for the first time.

“Maritime Big Play tangibly contributes to AUKUS’ partners interoperability in the maritime domain and supports collective deterrence and stability in the Indo‑Pacific,” said Stephen Moore, First Assistant Secretary AUKUS Advanced Capabilities. “Communicating underwater is no easy feat – but EX Maritime Big Play is helping make this happen faster.

“The multilateral scale and complexity of Talisman Sabre provided the ideal ground for EX Maritime Big Play to test cutting-edge technologies, and to advance AUKUS partners operational integration and interoperability in the maritime domain.”

Ther AUKUS partners in March this year issued their trilateral AUKUS Maritime Innovation Challenge 2025 which focussed on undersea communications and control of autonomous systems. It’s not known whether this year’s EX Maritime Big Play is part of this or not, but Defence’s statement says EX Maritime Big Play is an AUKUS Pillar II exercise series designed to enable the three partners to rapidly test and integrate autonomous systems with conventional platforms, equipping them to more effectively deter and deny threats above and under the water.

The AUKUS partners and Japan also worked together to enhance their use of underwater acoustic communications to task an underwater uncrewed vehicle to conduct activities at sea.

At EX Autonomous Warrior, held mostly in Jervis Bay, NSW, in October last year, the AUKUS partners demonstrated their ability to remotely control each other’s uncrewed systems from great distances using common control technologies.

This effort continued this year at EX Talisman Sabre by demonstrating the ability for Australia to transfer mission control of a UK Extra-Large Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, located in the UK, back to the UK remotely from Jervis Bay.

The integration of autonomy and greater interoperability between the three AUKUS partners gives their military commanders more options to protect and defend critical sea-bed infrastructure and sea lanes of communication, says Defence.