Saab has introduced Ocean Barrier, a fully integrated scalable underwater surveillance solution designed to provide persistent maritime awareness and protect critical infrastructure, coastal areas and territorial waters from underwater threats.
The underwater domain has long been one of the most challenging environments to monitor and protect, and as maritime infrastructure becomes increasingly important to national security, the need for reliable underwater surveillance has never been greater. The challenge means not only simply improving the performance of individual systems, but networking different capabilities together to create a more complete operational picture and coordinate responses more effectively. Ocean Barrier addresses this challenge by enabling operators to detect, track and analyse underwater activity across large maritime areas, helping protect coastlines, ports, offshore installations and other critical assets.
Saab’s experience in underwater systems means Ocean Barrier achieves this by integrating sensors, data collection and operator capabilities into a single connected system. By converting sensor information into real-time situational awareness, it helps its operators understand what is happening below the surface and respond to potential threats with confidence.
"The free flow of goods is the fundamental engine of the modern global economy," Åsa Schöllin, the head of Underwater Systems at Saab said. "In a grey zone scenario or conflict an aggressor may try to disrupt vital sea lines of communication thereby damaging both economic activity and military logistics. With Ocean Barrier we provide customers with a scalable and future-ready solution that delivers continuous awareness, enabling faster decisions and more effective protection of critical assets and maritime areas."
Ocean Barriers provides three defensive perimeters, known individually as Detect, Prevent and Protect, which can be tailored to different operational environments while each can operate independently or as part of a larger integrated system. Ocean Barrier can protect a single harbour, naval base or offshore installation through to securing extensive coastlines and national waters. The sensor-agnostic design also enables seamless integration with existing surveillance ecosystems.
At REPMUS 2026, an international exercise and development project for maritime unmanned systems, Ocean Barrier successfully demonstrated the ability to integrate data from diverse sensor systems and autonomously handing off tracked objects via a NATO standard protocol to the exercise’s central command system.
Designed to adapt to new threats and the means to combat them, Ocean Barrier is built on a modular and cyber-secure architecture that allows users to integrate new sensors, technologies and analytical capabilities as needs evolve.