Portuguese Navy establishes multidomain drone unit

The Portuguese Navy is progressively introducing unmanned systems. Shown here are the OGS42VN VTOL UAV for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, and a UAV mobile ground control station. (Victor Barreira)

As part of its ambitious effort to widen the use of unmanned systems, the Portuguese Navy has established a squadron-sized unit for the operation of military-grade unmanned systems.

The new unit, called ‘X31′, was officially stood up on 9 February. It is subordinated to naval command and will be responsible for operating current and future unmanned surface, subsurface, and air systems, as well as co-ordinating doctrine development and training activities, an industry source told
Janes
.

The creation of X31 follows an ambitious strategy by the navy to acquire unmanned systems for different missions and applications, develop unmanned systems in-house, and simultaneously support the local defence technological and industrial base.