Courtesy Photo | Civilian naval engineers from Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic’s...... read more read more
Editor’s Note:
This is the 2nd article in a series that depicts the ongoing testing of unmanned technology from NIWC Atlantic's Unmanned Naval Innovation Team (UNIT).
GDYNIA, Poland -- Civilian naval engineers from Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic’s Unmanned Naval Innovation Team (UNIT) recently conducted unmanned technology training with the U.S. Army and members of the Polish Armed Forces.
Based out of Charleston, South Carolina, UNIT is traveling the world testing their unmanned system (UxS) — a type of technology used in unmanned land, air and sea craft that can include software and hardware components. There can be many UxSs in one unmanned craft. UNIT’s mission is to enhance command and control (C2) capabilities for the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Operations Centers (MOCs).
After a successful demonstration in April 2025 at Centro de Experimentação Operacional da Marinha (CEOM) — or Portuguese Navy Operational Experimentation Centre — off the coast of Troia, Portugal, NIWC Atlantic deployed UNIT to Port Wojenny in Gdynia, Poland.
UNIT participated in a two-week, multi-service and multinational exercise, Arcane Thunder 25, where they demonstrated USV integration with Tactical Assault Kit (TAK) data collection alongside North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) partners and U.S. Fleet operational units.
“Arcane Thunder highlighted NIWC Atlantic’s dedication to delivering solutions that enhance fleet capabilities across multiple domains while strengthening NATO interoperability,” said Eric Stephenson, lead systems engineer for UNIT. “Our technologies directly supported the Navy's vision for a hybrid fleet that seamlessly integrates manned and unmanned systems."
In recent years, the U.S. Navy has put emphasis on creating a hybrid fleet of ships that would include approximately 350 crewed ships and 150 USVs. According to George Galdorsi, author and NIWC Pacific Director of Strategic Assessments and Technical Futures, a large motivator to create a hybrid fleet is the fact that the number of ships in the United States Navy has steadily declined within the past 35 years. To increase the number of ships in the most efficient way, the Navy plans to incorporate unmanned vessels because the available technology allows for a more cost-effective option.
"Every unmanned vessel deployed, every successful data transmission between tactical systems, brings us closer to the future fleet architecture," said UNIT Program Manager Michael Grass. "Our work in Poland underscores NIWC Atlantic’s commitment to maintaining the Navy’s edge in maritime operations.”
According to NIWC Atlantic engineers, it was important for UNIT to showcase the TAK federation effort. Federation capabilities refer to the ability to access and analyze data from multiple, diverse sources as if they were a single, unified database. At Arcane Thunder, Vesuvius Spiral 2 was used to connect Navy and Army tactical systems through a shared server.
UNIT’s UxS, Vesuvius Spiral 2, aims to improve not only C2 capabilities, but also the quality of telemetry data — information automatically collected from a remote source using sensors and other devices. This technology is currently used for self-driving boats known as unmanned surface vessels (USVs).
"The TAK federation work represented a significant leap forward in our ability to share tactical information across service boundaries," said David Bate, a NIWC Atlantic engineer who supported the exercise. "These capabilities dramatically improved situational awareness for commanders in joint maritime operations."
The innovation continued as NIWC Atlantic engineers pioneered new approaches to an important capability for joint operations. Engineers were able to demonstrate a Cursor on Target (CoT) message exchange between disparate military systems. CoT refers to exchanging real-time geospatial information messaging, and disparate military systems are separate software and/or databases that do not share data. Basically, engineers were able to connect isolated systems through real-time secure messaging.
While demonstrating the capabilities of Vesuvius Spiral 2, NIWC Atlantic engineers offered valuable training to the U.S. Army and our interoperable partners on how to use this system.
Following Arcane Thunder, UNIT deployed to Ustka, Poland, for the Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) exercise from June 4–27, 2025. The team provided continuous support for USV operations, integrating TAK capabilities and troubleshooting issues.
While there the team was able to fully integrate their technology with NATO’s Task Force X Baltic, enabling seamless data sharing between U.S. and allied forces. This supported real-time information flow to NATO’s Coalition Warrior Integration Exercise in Poland.
“Our BALTOPS technologies supported NATO’s emerging Maritime Unmanned Systems C2 architecture,” Grass said. “Using standardized formats like STANAG 4817, we enabled critical maritime data sharing across the alliance.”
UNIT’s UxS Vesuvius system was able to complete multiple milestones while participating in BALTOPS. These included the ability to collect and integrate air operations data from a small, unmanned aircraft system (UAS) as well as ingest data into multiple NATO unmanned platforms using a native data-smoothing framework.
Data smoothing refers to a technique used to reduce noise and reveal underlying patterns in data by reducing random variations and helps to highlight trends. Using a native data smoothing framework means engineers were able to reduce noise in a data environment they specifically designed for the NATO BALTOPS exercise.
In collaboration with Task Force 66 (CTF-66), part of U.S. 6th Fleet, UNIT supported joint operations with Polish Special Operations Forces using various USVs and conducted contested logistics experiments. “BALTOPS showed how quickly we’re advancing unmanned system integration across domains,” Grass noted. “These lessons will shape future exercises and deployments.”
NIWC Atlantic’s UNIT immersed themselves in the collaborative nature of Exercise Arcane Thunder and BALTOPS while in Poland. They played a central role in testing and developing communication innovation. The advancements demonstrated at the exercises are believed to enhance innovative success in future joint operations.
Looking ahead, NIWC Atlantic’s UNIT is preparing for the Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping using Maritime Uncrewed Systems (REPMUS)/Dynamic Messenger exercises later in 2025, continuing to advance unmanned systems with NATO partners.
| Date Taken: | 07.21.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 07.22.2025 13:35 |
| Story ID: | 543366 |
| Location: | GDYNIA, PL |
| Web Views: | 94 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, U.S. Navy Unmanned Systems Showcased at NATO Exercises in Poland, by Chelsie Holloway, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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