Amphibious Assault Forces Drone Guide

Amphibious forces are military organisations designed to operate across the maritime and land environments, traditionally using ships, landing craft, helicopters, aircraft, and specialised ground vehicles to move personnel and equipment between sea and shore. Modern amphibious operations are increasingly multi-domain, involving maritime, land, air, space, cyber, communications, intelligence, and logistics capabilities. Drone technology is becoming an important part of this wider ecosystem. Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), uncrewed surface vessels (USVs), and uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs) can provide amphibious forces with additional reconnaissance, mapping, communications, logistics, environmental assessment, and situational-awareness capabilities. Military organisations already use UAS extensively for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), communications relay, and logistics-related functions. For amphibious organisations, drones are particularly interesting because operations often involve large distances, rapidly changing coastal environments, limited infrastructure, and the need to connect forces operating at sea with personnel and equipment ashore. This guide provides a general, non-tactical overview of how drone technology can support amphibious forces, rather than instructions for conducting combat operations. ## **The Amphibious Operating Environment** Coastal environments are among the most complex areas in which drones can operate. The transition between sea and land introduces beaches, cliffs, ports, rivers, wetlands, islands, urban waterfronts, changing tides, waves, wind, saltwater, and rapidly changing weather. Amphibious forces may also operate considerable distances from established land-based infrastructure. Drones provide a flexible means of collecting information across these environments without requiring crewed aircraft or personnel to physically access every location. Different types of uncrewed systems can also work across different domains. ## **Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles** UAVs provide the aerial component of an uncrewed amphibious capability. Aircraft can range from small multirotor drones used for local observation to fixed-wing and VTOL systems capable of covering much larger areas. Depending on the platform, UAVs can carry high-resolution RGB cameras, thermal cameras, LiDAR, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), multispectral sensors, environmental instruments, communications equipment, or other specialised payloads. Larger ISR UAVs can provide persistent surveillance across extensive land and maritime areas; NATO, for example, operates remotely piloted aircraft equipped with SAR that provide long-range, day/night and all-weather surveillance capabilities. ## **Uncrewed Surface Vessels** Uncrewed Surface Vessels operate on the water rather than in the air. These systems can potentially support maritime surveying, environmental monitoring, communications, logistics, hydrographic data collection, and situational awareness. USVs may carry cameras, radar, sonar, meteorological sensors, communications equipment, or other payloads. Combining aerial and surface drones provides organisations with information from two very different perspectives. ## **Uncrewed Ground Vehicles** Once ashore, uncrewed ground vehicles provide another potential layer of capability. UGVs can be designed to transport equipment, carry sensors, inspect infrastructure, perform engineering-related tasks, or operate in environments considered unsuitable for immediate personnel access. For amphibious organisations, the longer-term development of integrated aerial, maritime, and ground robotics is particularly significant. Instead of viewing each drone as an independent system, future forces are likely to operate networks of interconnected uncrewed platforms. ## **Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance** ISR remains one of the most established applications for military UAVs. Drone sensors can provide imagery and other remote-sensing information that contributes to a broader understanding of coastal environments. High-resolution cameras provide visual information, thermal sensors detect temperature differences, LiDAR produces three-dimensional measurements, and SAR can provide radar imagery independent of visible daylight. Information from these systems can be combined with satellite imagery, crewed aircraft, maritime sensors, maps, and other authorised information sources. The objective is to provide decision-makers with improved situational awareness. ## **Coastal Mapping** Accurate geographic information is particularly valuable around coastlines because conditions can change substantially over relatively short periods. Drone photogrammetry can produce detailed orthomosaic imagery and three-dimensional models of coastal areas. LiDAR can provide highly accurate measurements of terrain, cliffs, dunes, vegetation, infrastructure, and other features. These datasets can support general geographic understanding, environmental monitoring, infrastructure assessment, training and planning. Repeated surveys also allow organisations to compare how an environment changes over time. ## **Synthetic Aperture Radar** Synthetic Aperture Radar provides an important capability for larger uncrewed aircraft. Unlike conventional cameras, SAR uses radar signals rather than visible light. This means it can collect information during both daytime and darkness and under some conditions involving cloud, haze, or poor visibility. SAR is particularly useful for large-area surveillance and remote sensing. NATO’s ISR force, for example, uses RQ-4D aircraft equipped with SAR for persistent surveillance across land and maritime environments. Future smaller SAR payloads could extend similar remote-sensing concepts to more compact UAV platforms. ## **Thermal Imaging** Thermal cameras measure infrared radiation associated with surface temperature. For amphibious forces, thermal imaging can support general situational awareness, infrastructure assessment, search and rescue, disaster response, and night-time observation. Thermal sensors are particularly useful when combined with high-resolution RGB cameras. The RGB sensor provides familiar visual information while thermal imagery provides an additional layer of environmental information. ## **Maritime Situational Awareness** Understanding activity across coastal waters is important for organisations operating between ships and shore. Drones can contribute imagery and sensor information that complements ship-based radar, Automatic Identification System information, satellites, maritime patrol aircraft, and other surveillance systems. Uncrewed aircraft can provide a different viewing perspective from ship-mounted sensors. USVs can simultaneously collect information from the surface. Combining these datasets creates a more complete maritime picture. ## **Communications Relay** Communications are particularly challenging when personnel, vessels, vehicles, and aircraft are distributed across large maritime and coastal areas. UAVs can potentially operate as airborne communications relays. An elevated communications platform can help extend connectivity between geographically separated authorised users, depending on the communications architecture being employed. Communications relay is already recognised as an established military UAS role. Future systems may increasingly use interconnected drone networks rather than relying on individual aircraft. ## **Logistics and Resupply** Logistics is one of the most demanding aspects of amphibious operations because personnel and equipment may initially depend heavily on resources transported from ships offshore. Uncrewed systems offer another potential transportation method. Cargo drones can transport relatively lightweight equipment between suitable locations, while larger autonomous aircraft may eventually carry significantly heavier loads. UAS cargo and resupply is already an established ar