Saab unveils Ocean Barrier for maritime border protection

The recent incidents at sea that plagued the critical underwater infrastructures (CUIs) such as pipelines and cables in the waters around Europe and other regions pushed the industries to find a solution for maritime border and CUI protection. With a long experience in developing equipment to defend the waters and underwater infrastructures of Sweden, which dates back before the Cold War, Saab unveils the Ocean Barrier solution, which was recently demonstrated during the international REPMUS 2026 exercise and is expected to be ready in 2027

The challenging waters of the Baltic Sea and the increasing incidents involving CUIs not only in this region but worldwide, are key drivers of the Saab development of a new, fully integrated, scalable underwater surveillance solution. “Ocean Barrier keeps waterways and important infrastructure safe from intrusion, sabotage, or other underwater threats. It offers early detection and constant situational awareness, allowing for quick response before threats get near to the protected areas. It is well suited for infrastructure protection or nations looking to monitor and protect harbours, waterways, and other key maritime routes,” Fredrik Danell, sales & marketing BU underwaters systems, BU Saab Naval said during an online media presentation.

“Ocean Barrier brings together multiple surveillance layers to create a complete package from early warning to tracking, while being sensors agnostic,” the Saab representative continued, unveiling the key elements of the suite. The latter is composed of the Detect, Prevent and Protect layers which are connected to an ashore data collecting installation where info is fused together with other networks of surface and air surveillance systems to provide a complete picture to be sent to command centres and higher echelons.

The “Detect” layer is the one located at greater distance from the coastline or defended waters; it involves passive sensors including very long line array with high number of separated hydroacoustic sensors, characterized by tripwire functionality, high internal time synchronization for joint processing, and proven and in use equipment with high level of technology readiness level (TRL). The whole package is designed to detect targets ranging from submarines to divers delivery vehicles (DDV) passing through autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV). The “Prevent” layer is composed of multiple commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) passive hydroacoustic pods to cover restricted waters areas and choke points; it is characterized by fibreoptic sensors that provide acoustic detection and the possibility for target tracking based on bearing, the whole package focused on detecting and tracking the same kind of threats already highlighted. The “Protect” layer, the Saab representative continued, is based on active hydroacoustic sensors installed in key spots to protect military and civilian infrastructures again threats operating in very low depths such as AUVs, DDVs and divers.

“We got the opportunity to show what the system could do in real life participating to the recent REPMUS 2026 NATO exercise in Portugal,” the Saab representative unveiled. “Here we settled down an underwater surveillance system to protect the harbour of Troja, characterized by busy civilian traffic, against different and various underwater vehicles which task was to approach the civilian infrastructure unnoticed,” he continued. The company has deployed two inner layers, prevent and protect ones, the first composed of passive pods, the other unspecified, all connected to a containerized shore installation for data collection, in addition to a surveillance centre equipped with surface and air sensors connected with higher echelons with communications means employing the NATO standards equipment. “We were able to detect and track the incoming underwater vehicles … Our system was among the few that successfully demonstrated these capabilities employing the requested NATO standards for data transfer,” the Saab representative revealed. Asked about the possibility for the sensors package to detect and track surface and aerial threats, he pointed out that surface targets are managed by a correlation between the underwater and surface sensors fusion, while for the aerial ones, “the job is little bit more difficult, but it (Ocean Barrier) could be used also for detecting incoming aerial targets, of course.” The waters, and especially the littoral ones, are a challenging environment not only for sensors but also for communications, and the low signature underwater targets such as midgets, DDVs and divers are even more demanding.

Looking to the sensors being used, recently Saab and Optics 11, the Dutch deep-tech company pioneering passive fibre optic sensing for underwater intelligence and energy grids, signed a strategic collaboration agreement to strengthen cooperation in the development of advanced underwater sensing and maritime security capabilities. The agreement establishes a framework for closer collaboration between the two companies, combining Optics 11’s expertise in highly sensitive passive fibre optic sensing with Saab’s extensive experience in defence technology, underwater systems, and integration.

Being asked by EDR On-Line about the level of maturity of the system, the Saab representative told the media that the deployed systems were COTS with a TRL 9. “But in the system, we have a lower TRL on the software side, which is 6/7. We are working on this to be able to be fully ready next year,” he highlighted, remarking that the company is working in this direction and other activities to demonstrate the on-going maturation steps that are foreseen for next year. Saab is planning to show the system in the next edition of REPMUS exercise and SeaSEC Baltic Archipelago Challenge 2027.

Photos and graphics courtesy Saab