Five HII ROMULUS 151 uncrewed surface vessels are now under construction in Louisiana, with the first hull completing its structural build and being turned over ahead of deck and pilothouse work, according to HII.
Four of the vessels are being built by Breaux Brothers Enterprises in New Iberia, while a fifth is under construction at Halimar Shipyard in Morgan City. HII said the first ROMULUS 151 hull at Breaux Brothers has now completed its main structural build and undergone the hull-flip process, allowing construction to move on to the upper parts of the vessel.
The programme is intended to produce a family of modular, AI-enabled uncrewed surface vessels for missions ranging from surveillance and mine countermeasures to strike and the operation of other robotic systems. ROMULUS is built around HII’s Odyssey Advanced Autonomy architecture, an open system intended to allow different mission payloads and software to be integrated as requirements change. The company says the vessels are being developed for potential use by the US Navy, US Marine Corps, other joint forces and allied customers.
Mission roles identified by HII include intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, mine countermeasures, strike operations and counter-uncrewed systems missions. The vessels are also intended to act as motherships for other autonomous platforms, with the ability to launch and recover uncrewed underwater and aerial vehicles.
The ROMULUS 151 is one member of a wider family rather than a single-purpose craft, with HII seeking to use common autonomy and open architecture across different sizes and mission configurations. The current production effort is split between two commercial Louisiana yards, with HII providing the autonomy technology and programme integration while the shipbuilders carry out construction.
HII said the arrangement was intended to combine conventional shipyard production methods with autonomous maritime technology, allowing vessels to be built in numbers without relying on a single yard. The first hull reaching the flip stage is an important construction milestone because it marks the point at which work can move from the principal hull structure towards the deck, pilothouse and subsequent outfitting.
HII describes ROMULUS as part of a broader move towards scalable autonomous maritime forces, where comparatively lower-cost uncrewed vessels can carry sensors, weapons or other systems alongside conventional warships. The company is already heavily involved in US Navy uncrewed systems, particularly underwater vehicles, and is using ROMULUS to expand that work into larger surface vessels.
With five ROMULUS 151s now being built simultaneously, the programme has moved beyond individual demonstrators towards a small production run intended to prove both the vessel design and the industrial approach needed to manufacture autonomous ships at greater scale.
