Underpinning the naval research and experimentation event dubbed “Southern Lightning” was the Department of the Navy imperative to develop a future hybrid fleet that integrates manned and unmanned systems across all warfighting domains — land, air and sea.

“This experiment and our strong collaboration with NSWC Crane exemplifies the intrinsic value warfare centers bring to the naval research and development establishment,” said Kevin Charlow, NIWC Atlantic acting executive director. “Alongside strong community support on Sullivan’s Island, it was remarkable to see the enthusiasm of our scientists and engineers working hard to envision which communications technologies offer our Sailors and Marines the most promising capabilities.”

Sullivan’s Island, a short helicopter ride from NIWC Atlantic, is the kickoff location for Southern Lightning each year. The second leg of the two-week experimentation takes place at Savannah River National Laboratory in Aiken, South Carolina, where NIWC Atlantic has collaborated with the Department of Energy on things like cyber, autonomous systems and electromagnetic spectrum operations (EMSO) since 2023.

Making this year exceptional from other times was the presence of a U.S. Fleet Forces Command warship with a storied past anchored off South Carolina.

U.S. Fleet Forces Command positioned the Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS Cole (DDG 67) more than 20 miles off the coast to help the Navy warfare centers evaluate the viability of new technologies and concepts in an operational environment.

The USS Cole also flew MH-60R helicopters in support of the unmanned communications testing while the South Carolina National Guard dispatched AH-64 Apache helicopters to the area.

“Through our partnership with Sullivan’s Island, NIWC Atlantic provides the kind of littoral environment that other warfare centers cannot offer,” said Cliff Hunt, NIWC Atlantic senior scientific technical manager for assured communications. “In the Lowcountry, we have protected harbors and can provide industry, government innovators and warfighters the unique ability to get out into deep water quickly.”

Throughout the week, unmanned systems owned by industry were launched from the western tip of Sullivan’s Island early in the morning. Some vessels acted as transportation for smaller unmanned systems.

Mike Massenet, one of NIWC Atlantic’s lead engineers for assured communications, spent much of the week setting up and operating 30 communication nodes comprising a suite of sophisticated radio technologies developed by industry.

“These companies pay out of pocket to travel here and demonstrate their products, which we really appreciate,” Massenet said. “NIWC Atlantic couldn’t be a leader in assured and resilient communications without them.”

Unmanned platforms and technologies operated far out at sea while NIWC Atlantic and NSWC Crane technologists monitored signals and analyzed endless streams of data huddled inside Southern Lightning’s maritime operations center, or MOC.

A nerve center of sorts, the MOC is a U.S. Navy command-and-control concept that naval strategic guidance released last year called a “warfighting system” capable of operating on a “decentralized and global battlefield” just like other weapons systems.

For Southern Lightning, the MOC was set up in NIWC Atlantic’s facility on Sullivan’s Island, a tall brick building on a hill next to Fort Moultrie.

In the bigger picture, Southern Lightning is a portion of a series of larger Department of Defense (DoD) experimentations each year called Silent Swarm.

Led by NSWC Crane and sponsored by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Silent Swarm invites industry to northern Michigan every summer to experiment with early-stage technologies on Lake Huron. Its primary focus is on EMSO capabilities that can be employed on small, unmanned, multi-domain systems in support of U.S. Navy and Joint Force operations.

“NIWC Atlantic’s Southern Lightning provides NSWC Crane an opportunity to experiment with some Silent Swarm technology initiatives in a unique, multi-domain environment that includes the fleet and brings together teams from across DoD and industry,” said Robert “Ice” Gamberg, Silent Swarm lead and NSWC Crane fleet experimentation lead.

In tandem with Silent Swarm, Southern Lightning has grown into a golden opportunity for NIWC Atlantic, a warfare center considered a forerunner in the integration of the compute environments integrated onboard unmanned vehicles.

Both experimentations offer NIWC Atlantic engineers and scientists a chance to hone communications capabilities critical to future fleet operations, Hunt said.

“In a hybrid fleet setting, our Sailors and Marines will be reliant on assured and resilient communications,” he explained. “This means sensors and radio waves need to be validated now, during peacetime, to ensure warfighters can access information in the future.”

In addition to a tethered aerostat flying over Charleston Harbor to facilitate communications, testing during Southern Lightning included the deployment of sensors, relays and radios aboard unmanned aerial, surface and subsurface vehicles.

Christian Martin, a NIWC Atlantic engineer who helped lead Southern Lightning, said the maritime environment on Sullivan’s Island enabled government scientists and engineers to think outside the box and figure out how the communication architecture in the unmanned arena can be conceived and rapidly developed for the fleet.

“In a nutshell, everything NIWC Atlantic is involved in centers around assured and resilient communications across all domains, especially the littoral environment,” Martin said.