Israel Navy moves toward semi-autonomous fleet with robotic ships

The Israeli navy is moving toward becoming a semi-autonomous force and may eventually become nearly fully autonomous, the IDF said.

It has been reported that the Israeli navy has operated autonomous sea vehicles in recent years, though it is unclear when swarms at sea will be ready to roll out.

Elbit Systems has already been among the Israeli companies developing such technologies, including its publicized 12-meter Seagull autonomous surface vessel, designed to patrol offshore infrastructure for up to four days. It also "incorporates mine countermeasures (MCM), anti-submarine warfare (ASW), maritime security (MS), electronic warfare (EW) and other advanced systems and technologies."

Other countries like France, Singapore, and the Netherlands are also shifting their navies toward more autonomous operations.

Despite those navies' progress, Israel's navy said it is even more advanced in using robots and autonomy.

The need for robots and autonomous operations is clear, given that ships can spend weeks or longer at sea.

Even the most resilient sailors have trouble with this amount of time at sea, and an overwhelming portion of the population is just incapable of doing it at all.

Israel faces growing naval threats from Turkey, Iran, Houthis

In addition, Israel faces growing naval threats from Turkey, and possibly from Iran, the Houthis in Yemen, and others.

The navy said this means it will need more ships in the future to secure Israel's maritime national security interests.

However, the navy does not believe the country or the military will grant it additional staffing power for more ships, so the only stable way to expand Israel's naval fleet sufficiently will involve fewer human soldiers per ship, and eventually zero or close to zero.

At one stage, Israeli soldiers can focus solely on maintenance and safety issues with robots and autonomous systems operating most other systems.

Robots are a double-edged sword

At a later stage, robots may be able to undertake all or much of the maintenance work.

But robots are a double-edged sword.

Enemy forces are also expected to use robots and autonomous systems against Israel.

This will create a number of challenges: land-to-sea and sea-to-sea.

In addition, the IDF is aware that China, Russia, and other countries have explored cutting underwater cables, which foreign reports have confirmed going back to at least 2023 in the Baltic Sea, near Britain, Norway, and at other locations.

Israel is working on and will need to expand its defense of these underwater cables going forward.