Unsettled waters in the North: can navies still trust their Arctic acoustic maps?
UUVs such as this Bluefin-21 are increasingly being deployed on survey missions below the Arctic ice cap. (Photo: General Dynamics Mission Systems)
The changing Arctic environment is creating new challenges for submarine detection, driving demand for distributed sensors, uncrewed underwater vehicles and real-time acoustic modelling.
As Arctic sea passages open up, navies are beginning to invest in the autonomous sensors, environmental modelling and communications required to preserve their anti-submarine warfare (ASW) advantage in the region.
Research conducted during the US Navy’s Operation Ice Camp 2026 offered a glimpse of how that challenge might be addressed. MIT Lincoln Laboratory researchers tested a higher-fidelity geophone to capture vibrations from moving and cracking ice, while a related trial used a modem developed by Norwegian defence start-up Havguard to transmit data through 3.6ft of sea ice.
By the time Ice Camp 2028 comes around, the same team hopes to
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