Usv News

British shipbuilding group Balaena and Norway's Kongsberg Maritime have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to advance the Arctic Hunter uncrewed surface vessel (USV), a proposed solution for the Royal Navy's emerging Type 92 anti-submarine warfare requirement.The agreement, signed at Kongsberg Maritime's offices in Norway on November 11, builds on an existing relationship between the companies and aims to combine British shipbuilding capabilities with Norwegian vessel…

Seasats announced a partnership with Neros that brings Neros' Archer 10" Strike and Archer Al FPV drones aboard the Quickfish unmanned surface vessel (USV). The partnership combines maritime presence, rapid response, and kinetic strike capability to deliver affordable maritime strike at scale.Quickfish's enclosed, modular payload bay carries six Archer strike drones, giving operators multiple shots from a single vessel and protecting the drones in all ocean conditions until they are needed.

The U.S. Coast Guard is concluding its scheduled 2026 seasonal evaluation of six Saildrone Voyager Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) on the Great Lakes this week ahead of forecasted winter icing conditions. Following the completion of this seasonal evaluation, the Coast Guard intends to conduct an additional test and evaluation period in the spring of 2027 as part of a service-wide effort to evaluate how autonomous technologies enhance Coast Guard missions and assist operators.Deployed between April and November 2026 across the Great Lakes…

Maritime Tactical Systems, Inc. (MARTAC), a provider of fully autonomous unmanned surface vessels (USVs), announced that it has delivered two Devil Ray T38 USVs to the Philippine Marine Corps (PMC), providing the service with an end-to-end asymmetric maritime capability for protecting Philippine national sovereignty. The delivery was done in conjunction with the opening of MARTAC’s Unmanned Center of Excellence (CoE), which will provide comprehensive maintenance, sustainment and…

Norwegian maritime technology company Kongsberg Maritime has unveiled the Arctic Hunter USV, a new class of uncrewed surface vessels designed for rapid integration and deployment into Hybrid Fleets.In response to the UK Royal Navy’s development of its hybrid fleet of crewed and uncrewed assets, the Arctic Hunter USV combines commercial ship design with Kongsberg Maritime’s remote and autonomous technologies to deliver anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability in the High North.Kongsberg…

U.S.-based Naval Systems, Inc. (in partnership with Dragonfish Technical Solutions, LLC) (NSI/DF) and U.K.-based SubSea Craft successfully demonstrated an integrated suite of advanced unmanned maritime systems during a multinational maritime exercise conducted October 5–8 off the coast of California. At the request of the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research & Engineering (OUSW(R&E)) exercise personnel, SubSea Craft and NSI/DF combined their autonomous systems to deliver an integrated demonstration capability…

German propulsion specialist SCHOTTEL has introduced a new submersible auxiliary thruster designed to improve maneuverability and positioning accuracy for crewed and uncrewed underwater vehicles, including submarines.The SCHOTTEL PumpJet Submersible SPJ-S provides continuously adjustable thrust through 360 degrees and is designed for civil and military underwater operations, including deepwater missions and maneuvering in confined spaces.The electrically driven system uses an impeller without a gearbox…

Fairbanks Morse Defense (FMD) has unveiled AutoHook, an autonomous vessel recovery interface developed by its Norway-based business Vestdavit, designed to recover uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) and other craft without manual connections.Introduced at EURONAVAL 2026 in Paris on November 2, the system is designed to automate the active recovery phase of launch and recovery operations, with FMD reporting that it has achieved operational acceptance at Sea State 4.AutoHook uses onboard vision technology and integrated thrusters to track and secure moving vessels during recovery…

Saildrone announced a year-long mission with the Swedish Armed Forces to deliver persistent maritime domain awareness across Sweden’s territorial waters and exclusive economic zone in the Baltic Sea.Under the agreement, Saildrone will deploy and operate four Voyager unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) for 360 days each, representing 1,440 contracted vehicle-days of continuous maritime security operations.This deployment marks the first national deployment of Saildrone USVs under…

Maritime Tactical Systems, Inc. (MARTAC), a U.S. provider of fully autonomous unmanned surface vessels (USVs), announced that the Taiwan Coast Guard Administration (CGA) is acquiring an undisclosed number of Devil Ray T24 autonomous surface vessels. The sale represents one of the most significant international purchases of U.S.-manufactured USVs to date.The opportunity was made possible through the tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by MARTAC, the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), and Confucian Co., Ltd.

SEA.AI, a provider of maritime machine vision, announced the integration of its technology on MARTAC unmanned surface vessels. MARTAC, a Florida-based manufacturer of autonomous maritime platforms, has selected SEA.AI's system as part of its sensor integration architecture, adding autonomous visual intelligence to its fleet across ISR, security, and patrol mission profiles. MARTAC’s fleet of scalable, battle-hardened autonomous USV platforms include the MANTAS T12, Devil Ray T18…

Incat Crowther will provide naval architecture and design services to America’s largest shipbuilder HII for ROMULUS unmanned surface vessels (USVs) being built under the U.S. Navy's Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) program.HII has been awarded a U.S. Navy contract to build the vessels, with Incat Crowther supporting the program through its Louisiana-based team as a member of the ROMULUS project team.ROMULUS is a modular family of AI-enabled unmanned surface vessels based on HII's open-architecture Odyssey Advanced Autonomy Solutions and designed to address current and emerging U.S.

Maritime Tactical Systems, Inc. (MARTAC) announced a manufacturing partnership with fellow Florida-based boatbuilder SŌLACE Boats, a partnership designed to enable MARTAC to scale production of its Devil Ray USV platforms by 100 vessels per year, meeting increasing demand signals from U.S. and allied-nation governments as well as supporting national security operations. SŌLACE Boats has an established reputation for designing and building high-performance and high-strength boats.

Indian marine automation provider Accurate Industrial Controls is set to begin converting three patrol boats to Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs) as part of a six-vessel deal with the Indian Navy.The company has already undertaken a feasibility assessment of the first three vessels ahead of converting them to fully autonomous boats at Mumbai’s Naval Dockyard.Dharmesh Popatlal Gala, Accurate’s director of AI & Robotics, said the three vessels include a 13m Fast Interceptor Craft (FIC) used in coastal reconnaissance and two larger 23m Immediate Support Vessels (ISV).

Robosys Automation, a provider of autonomous navigation and vessel control systems, announced the integration of its VOYAGER AI Autonomous Navigation System (ANS) software with FarSounder’s Forward Looking Sonar (FLS) technology, delivering real-time situational awareness, obstacle detection, and navigation decision support for both luxury superyachts and Uncrewed Surface Vessels (USVs).The integration combines VOYAGER AI's navigation, route planning, COLREGs collision avoidance and autonomous vessel control capabilities with FarSounder's 3D forward-looking sonar technology.

[video courtesy Saildrone]Saildrone and Lockheed Martin demonstrated a new armed autonomous naval capability during RIMPAC 2026, successfully launching two Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles (JAGM) from a Saildrone Surveyor unmanned surface vessel (USV) off Hawaii.The live-fire exercise marked the first missile launch from a Saildrone platform, moving the commercially derived USV beyond its established intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and ocean-mapping roles into kinetic operations.Conducted under the U.S.

Anyone who has attended a writer’s conference has heard writers, editors, agents and publishers repeat the same mantra: “Show, don’t tell.” You can likely intuit what this means, but just to be clear, if you are writing a western thriller and you are describing a bar fight, it can’t be told matter-of-factly. The reader has to hear the crash of beer bottles against the bar’s mirror, feel the gunshots and root for the sheriff.What does this have to do with uncrewed maritime systems? A great deal.The U.S.

HII has announced that the U.S. Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has officially recognized the successful completion of the company’s production-ready, inexpensive, maritime expeditionary (PRIME) prototype project.The prototype features the Watcher small unmanned surface vessel (sUSV), which is based on HII’s Romulus-25 USV and powered by HII’s Odyssey autonomous control system.The DIU recognition follows HII’s delivery and successful sea testing of two autonomous Watcher Romulus…

Blue Water Autonomy, a Boston-based technology and shipbuilding company, has been selected for a multiple-award contract with the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO) to provide high-resolution ocean floor mapping using long-endurance uncrewed surface vessels.Deep open-ocean survey is among the most demanding work at sea, and its value reaches well beyond a map of the seafloor. Surveys like these characterize the operating environment itself such as the terrain, the acoustics, and the shifting conditions that shape how naval forces move and operate far from shore.

Technology companies and shipyards are vying for attention as the US unmanned navy grows in size and sophistication.No too long ago, US Navy Secretary John Phelan said: “If the last few years of conflict have taught us anything, it is that we will not win the wars of the future with the platforms of the past.” The nation’s ability to deter future conflict or to prevail, if necessary, will benefit from high quantities of low-cost air, surface and subsea unmanned systems. These…

GABLER, a provider of submarine systems, and German defense technology company FLANQ have successfully completed the Sea Acceptance Test (SAT) demonstrating seaworthiness of their jointly developed Torpedo-Tube-Launched Uncrewed Surface Vessel (TTL USV) capability demonstrator.The demonstrator vehicle, named Ranger, combines GABLER's experience in mission-critical submarine components and defense manufacturing with FLANQ's capabilities in autonomous maritime systems, mission software…

UAV Navigation-Grupo Oesía, a Spanish company that specializes in guidance, navigation, and control solutions for unmanned vehicles, announced the release of software version 9.2, introducing enhanced interoperability, modularity, and multi-domain operational capabilities.Version 9.2 further strengthens coordinated multi-domain UxV operations, enabling interaction between aerial and maritime platforms. The navigation and control system supports heterogeneous UAV-USV swarms, including shared situational awareness and cooperative behaviors across air and sea domains.

ACUA Ocean's Mk1 USV PIONEER has successfully completed a five-day remotely operated offshore demonstration, validating persistent, multi-domain maritime operations using an uncrewed surface vessel.On Monday 22 June 2026, PIONEER departed Turnchapel Wharf, Plymouth, and operated continuously 16–20 nautical miles offshore until Friday 26 June, completing more than 100 hours at sea without physical intervention. The demonstration combined two independent mission systems operating simultaneously:A CommsAudit SPECTRA Super Resolution Direction Finding (SRDF) surveillance system…