Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States tested their ability to control and communicate with autonomous underwater systems during Talisman Sabre 2025, as part of the AUKUS Pillar 2 initiative known as Maritime Big Play. The Australian government announced the joint trials on Wednesday, which saw Japan participate for the first time.
During the exercise, the four nations tested underwater acoustic communication capabilities to direct an uncrewed underwater vehicle at sea. In one key demonstration, Australia remotely transferred mission control of a U.K.-based extra-large autonomous underwater vehicle back to the United Kingdom from Jervis Bay using common control technologies.
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According to Stephen Moore, first assistant secretary for AUKUS advanced capabilities at Defence Australia, the exercise underscores the trilateral partnership’s commitment to collective deterrence and regional stability in the Indo-Pacific.
“The multilateral scale and complexity of Talisman Sabre provided the ideal ground for Maritime Big Play to test cutting-edge technologies, and to advance AUKUS partners’ operational integration and interoperability in the maritime domain,” Moore said in a statement.
Talisman Sabre builds on Autonomous Warrior 2024, a three-week experimentation event also held in Jervis Bay, which featured demonstrations of advanced uncrewed and remote systems, including the Triton subsurface vessel, the Greenough Advanced Rescue Craft, Sea Stalker autonomous vessels and high-altitude balloons.