Jamie Bennet 
- Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Navy demonstrated the antisubmarine warfare capabilities of the SensorMAX platform during the 2026 Rim of the Pacific exercise
- Lockheed’s SensorMAX is a system that works to help users identify threats under the surface of the water with the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning
- The system’s models can be retrained speedily on novel acoustic signatures and updated across users via a secure over the air data link
Lockheed Martin said Wednesday that it worked with the U.S. Navy to demonstrate an artificial intelligence and machine learning-powered sonar analysis system during this summer’s Rim of the Pacific exercise.
The demonstration, conducted off the coast of Hawaii during RIMPAC 26, featured the company’s SensorMAX platform, which works to process subsurface acoustic data and support faster threat detection for antisubmarine warfare missions.
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What Is SensorMAX?
SensorMAX is a system that ingests acoustic data collected from a network of sensors and works to help users identify targets via AI/ML. Under a closed-loop workflow, system operators identify a new target signature, label the data, retrain the underlying model and push a software update back to the crew in the field. Lockheed Martin said this capture-label-retrain-deploy cycle can be completed in under five minutes.
How Was SensorMAX Demonstrated at RIMPAC?
During the exercise, a pair of MH-60R helicopters dropped sonobuoys to capture acoustic data from beneath the surface of the water. The data was then transmitted to SensorMAX, which works to assist crews with target identification. Its models would then be retrained by ground operators on new sounds, resulting in AI-enhanced undersea intelligence that would be transmitted back to the helicopters and fleet via an encrypted over the air data link.
