NATO expects the real-time technology will help it to rapidly respond to emerging threats, such as sabotage attempts.
ADVERTISEMENTNATO says it has developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can flag vessels that are behaving suspiciously.
The software, called “Mainsail,” is designed to analyse maritime traffic and can spot vessels that appear to be diverting off-course to potentially damage or gather intelligence about undersea infrastructure.
According to the military alliance, the software uses satellite imagery, sonar systems, and underwater sensors.
Algorithms used to monitor ship traffic
“Mainsail is the result of years of experience and scientific development in order to pick up anomalies in the maritime domain, and these algorithms that the centre has developed, oftentimes using AI, have been able to be used for monitoring ship traffic,” Eric Pouliquen, the director of NATO’s Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation, said in an alliance video.
“It turns out that it works very well. It’s able to, in an automatic way, without the user and the presence of operators, it’s able to actually raise suspicion on particular trajectories of ships and other activity,” Pouliquen added.
NATO expects the real-time technology will help it rapidly respond to emerging threats.
However, some experts say tools like Mainsail could send false alarms due to the limited number of sensors on the seabed.
“If we talk about things happening on the sea surface, I think there is a possibility here for tools like this to identify a collision or risk for collisions between ships or also groundings,” Hans Liwång, the deputy head of the system science for defence and security department at the Swedish Defence University, told Euronews Next.
“But if we’re talking about things that could happen at the seabed, the information available for tools like this of incidents on the seabed is very limited”.
Installing more sensors is a process that is complicated legally, he added.
“Countries can implement sensors on their national waters for military purposes. But in the economic zone and in international waters, it’s not possible or legal to implement a sensor for military purposes,” Liwång said.
While sensors can be placed near existing infrastructure like cables or wind power structures he said there would always be a limited number of them on the seabed.
NATO patrolling the sea
NATO has increased sea patrolling following several incidents such as the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage in 2022, the Balticconnector gas pipeline burst in 2023, and undersea cable damage in the Baltic Sea in 2024.
In early February this year, NATO’s minesweepers patrolled the Øresund Strait between Denmark and Sweden.
The group was using powerful sensors and submarine drones to monitor undersea infrastructure while scoping out passing traffic for signs of wrongdoing, according to NATO.
ADVERTISEMENT“The modern society is very dependent on the underwater infrastructure, be it Internet cables, be it pipelines with fossil fuels or otherwise,” Sander Klop, a lieutenant commander of the Royal Netherlands Navy, said in a NATO video.
“I think damaging these infrastructures can cripple a society so I think it’s essential to prevent that”.
Problems with cables shouldn’t disrupt society
Liwång says the sabotage doesn’t pose a direct threat to our society as we have many cables and pipes.
“If we look at the incidents at the scene so far, it doesn’t really have any concrete effect on the societies. It is the uncertainty that it creates, not the breakage themselves that actually creates an effect,” he said.
ADVERTISEMENTLiwång added we are in an “era” of getting more information about what happens at sea but that automatic tools also present challenges as we haven’t had that data historically.
He suggests that we look at other measures to protect our infrastructure beyond protecting undersea cables as well.
“So the main protection method is actually to have alternatives, not being dependent on a specific cable, but having alternative routes and alternative cables both for electricity and for data,” he said.
“We must have a society that can allow cables to break either as a result of accidents or sabotage. That shouldn’t be anything that really disturbs our main functions of society”.
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