Ports, coastlines, and maritime approaches are among the most sensitive and demanding environments to secure.
They are crowded, dynamic, and constantly active — yet they require uninterrupted awareness and control.
Manned patrols are costly, limited in endurance, and increasingly expose personnel to unnecessary risk.
Fixed infrastructure lacks flexibility, while large platforms are often visible long before they are effective.
As maritime activity intensifies, the ability to maintain persistent, discreet presence in coastal and harbor environments is becoming a strategic requirement rather than an advantage.
GIDEON was conceived to explore how this presence can be achieved differently — quietly, continuously, and without placing people in harm’s way.
At the core of GIDEON is a clear operational idea:
remain at sea, remain effective, and remain difficult to detect.
The initiative explores a low-profile, unmanned surface platform designed to operate with minimal signature, powered electrically, and optimized for discretion rather than dominance.
GIDEON’s operational vision is built around three central principles:
Low observability at sea
Operating close to the surface with a reduced visual, acoustic, and thermal footprint.
Autonomy with restraint
Enabling extended operation without constant human input, while preserving supervision, control, and safe recovery at all times.
Multi-domain awareness
Extending surface-level presence through the selective deployment of small unmanned aerial assets, allowing observation beyond the platform’s immediate line of sight.
Rather than relying on large, visible vessels or unconstrained autonomy, GIDEON explores a balanced model:
quiet surface presence, electrically powered, supervised autonomy, and selective aerial extension.
GIDEON is being advanced as an early-stage maritime autonomy initiative.
ARMA GIDEON has made a deliberate decision to pursue this direction — with the intent to mature GIDEON into a viable capability through disciplined, phased development grounded in operational reality.
The challenges GIDEON addresses are not theoretical.
Persistent maritime presence, reduced human exposure, and low-observable surface operation are real requirements that demand structured execution rather than abstract discussion.
For this reason, ARMA GIDEON is actively open to collaboration with professionals and organizations capable of contributing to the initiative’s advancement, including:
Maritime and naval engineers
Autonomous systems and control specialists
Marine energy and propulsion experts
Defense and dual-use technology stakeholders
Strategic partners and investors aligned with long-term capability development
Collaboration around GIDEON is purposeful and selective, focused on shaping direction, validating assumptions, and laying the foundations for future execution.
