USVs Getting Smarter, Faster and More Flexible
The rapid pace of uncrewed surface vessel (USV) technology development has been on display this month, most recently with CSBC Corp’s military-grade USV Manta being demonstrated at the Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition.
All components of the trimaran USV are guaranteed to be from non-Chinese sources, and the software used on the ship was developed by a joint venture between domestic and foreign companies, excluding China. It features an expanded rear flight deck that would allow drones to dock, and it is capable of carrying its own drones under its main deck.
Next was the release by Subsea Europe Services of its first in-house market offering, the C-RECON 13-ES. Set to enter service in early 2026, the 4-meter, all-electric vessel is designed is designed for hydrographic surveys, environmental monitoring, and offshore asset inspection.
SES has drawn on years of experience configuring and operating third-party USVs to simplify payload integration and sensor management, a frequent pain point when mobilizing USVs, using its proprietary C-KONTROL technology. This ‘plug and sail’ hardware backbone ensures the smooth installation of a wide range of survey and inspection sensors and accelerates launch readiness. Additionally, a tool-free C-Lock quick-mount deck system, universal C-Fit underwater payload interface and C-Caster profiling winch, further simplifies vessel setup.
HII unveiled its new AI-enabled ROMULUS family of USVs powered by HII’s Odyssey Autonomous Control System (ACS) software suite. ROMULUS 190, the flagship of the ROMULUS family, is currently under construction. Built on a commercial-standard hull, it is engineered for rapid, repeatable production and immediate mission readiness. Designed for speeds exceeding 25 knots, the 190-foot vessel is capable of a minimum range of 2,500 nautical miles carrying 4 x 40 foot ISO intermodal containers on the payload deck. ROMULUS 190 is being developed in partnership with Breaux Brothers, Beier Integrated Systems, and Incat Crowther.
The Odyssey ACS software suite has demonstrated performance on more than 35 USV platforms with over 6,000 operational hours in U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, and international allied programs. Odyssey’s intuitive interface and enhanced, customizable features generate the required mission behaviors for greater lethality and survivability with simplified control of unmanned swarms across domains, making it a force multiplier for the modern fleet.
The software suite’s open-access, government-aligned architecture enables rapid integration of new sensors, payloads, and third-party autonomy technologies. It allows industry, government, and academia to test and refine capabilities, ensuring ROMULUS evolves in step with emerging naval concepts of operations.
ROMULUS’s reconfigurable design supports teaming across surface, subsurface, and air domains for missions including counter-unmanned air systems (C-UAS), intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), strike operations, and the launch and recover of unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).
Odyssey enables control of either individual assets or swarms, and its mission library delivers high-level autonomy in executing rapid single-agent tasks or complex, multi-agent scenarios in coordination with crewed and unmanned platforms. Secure data management enables instant analytics or detailed post-mission review, while its modular design supports seamless integration of customer or third-party sensors, payloads, algorithms, and interfaces.
Also this month, BMT unveiled its Modular Uncrewed Ship concept MODUS. Working to a new design philosophy focussing on speed of production, price and high availability, BMT has developed pre-concept designs for a medium USV (40 metres) and a large USV (75 metres). These vessels are designed for specific use cases including offshore survey, seabed warfare, and anti-submarine warfare.
Further developments in USV technology are underway with the testing of unmanned and autonomous USV and UAV systems off the coast of Port Hueneme, California, in August. The series holds over a dozen demonstrations each year between June and September and provides a controlled environment for businesses to conduct field experiments.
NODA AI Inc. and its autonomy software, known as URZA, were at the center of most of the demonstrations. Based out of Austin, Texas, the software development company put its program through a contested logistics resupply scenario that incorporated eight systems across five other vendors. URZA served as a connective tissue between a variety of drones that allowed them to communicate with each other.
Flying overhead was Darkhive’s autonomous drone, Obelisk. The UAV is equipped with recognition software that can identify and classify vessels on the water’s surface.
Andrenam used its AI-powered maritime sensing system near the Port of Hueneme. The technology was attached to four buoys and detected and tracked surface and underwater threats. The sensing system can detect quiet unmanned underwater vessels (UUVs) from 200 to 300 yards away, and larger surface vessels over 3 kilometers (about 2 miles) away.