Joining forces for innovation towards a safer North Sea

The North Sea is a crossroads for shipping, energy supply and international data connections. Ports, subsea telecommunications cables, pipelines, wind farms and electricity interconnectors make it of major economic and societal importance. At the same time, an evolving security landscape and increasing digitalisation are creating new challenges.

During Drone West x Captains of Industry Day, Blue Cluster, the Belgian Navy and POM West-Vlaanderen brought together companies and research institutions to explore how innovation can help improve the protection of the North Sea. It became clear that the solutions extend far beyond drones alone.

To protect critical maritime infrastructure, we need to be better able to determine what is happening above, on and below the water, and turn that information into actionable insights.

That is precisely why Drone West was combined with Captains of Industry Day for the first time this year. While Drone West provides a platform for unmanned systems and real-world applications, Captains of Industry Day brings companies, knowledge institutions and the Navy closer together. This creates an environment where technology is not considered in isolation, but explored in the context of real needs at sea.

For Blue Cluster, the event was therefore about more than simply demonstrating new technologies. The ambition is to connect people and expertise and accelerate collaboration, ensuring that innovative solutions are better aligned with real-world needs and that different technologies can reinforce one another.

This approach is embedded in the Blue Cluster’s Maritime Security innovation roadmap. It focuses on four interconnected steps: improving detection and identification, protection, response and recovery. The technological building blocks are broad, ranging from fixed and mobile sensors and aerial, surface and underwater drones to robotics, automation, secure communications, data analytics and artificial intelligence.

The real added value emerges when these technologies work together. A sensor or autonomous system can provide information on its own, but it is only by combining and interpreting data from different sources that we can generate actionable insights that enable users to make informed decisions.

An important part of the day was therefore the series of speed-dating sessions between the Belgian Navy and companies and knowledge institutions, organised by Blue Cluster. During these short conversations, participants could engage directly with Navy representatives, exchange ideas and expertise, and explore potential opportunities for further collaboration.

The discussions were structured around three concrete themes:

• Maritime situational awareness and protection focused on monitoring, detection, sensors, AI, underwater surveillance and the protection of critical infrastructure.
• Drone operations and autonomous systems covered topics including UAVs, USVs and UUVs, remote operation and human-machine collaboration. 
• The third theme, fleet readiness and deployability, broadened the scope to maintenance and inspection, digital twins, training and simulators, logistics and asset management.

The conversations were deliberately exploratory in nature. They gave the Navy a better understanding of the technologies and expertise currently being developed within industry and the knowledge community. At the same time, technology developers gained a better understanding of the operational environment in which their solutions ultimately need to perform.