HII has confirmed that construction of the prototype for its new ROMULUS family of unmanned surface vessels has reached around 30 per cent completion, with the programme remaining on track for sea trials in late 2026, according to the company.
The update was announced during a visit by HII executives to Breaux Brothers Enterprises in Loreauville, Louisiana, where the prototype hull is under construction. HII said progress has been made across hull fabrication, outfitting and the integration of its Odyssey Autonomous Control System, which underpins the vessel’s autonomy architecture.
Andy Green, president of HII’s Mission Technologies division, said: “ROMULUS is progressing at a pace that reflects the urgency of the mission and the strength of our partnerships. Breaux Brothers and our industry team are delivering a platform that brings scale, autonomy and real operational advantage to the fleet.” He added that the prototype was on course to become “the benchmark for unmanned surface capability”, according to the company.
ROMULUS is being developed as a modular, AI-enabled family of unmanned surface vessels intended to support a wide range of missions for the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, joint forces and allied customers. HII states that the design emphasises endurance, open-ocean autonomy and scalability, with potential roles including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, mine countermeasures, counter-uncrewed systems and strike support. The company also says the vessels are designed to support the launch and recovery of unmanned underwater and aerial vehicles.
According to HII, the ROMULUS design is built around its Odyssey autonomy suite, which it says is already in use across dozens of unmanned surface platforms and hundreds of REMUS unmanned underwater vehicles worldwide. The company claims this software enables sustained autonomous operations, multi-vehicle coordination and rapid integration of new payloads through an open architecture.
The ROMULUS programme also has relevance for the UK. Babcock International has previously announced its ARMOR (Autonomous and Remote Maritime Operational Response) Force concept, which includes the proposed integration of HII’s ROMULUS vessels as part of future Royal Navy autonomous and hybrid fleet concepts. Commenting on that partnership earlier, HII chief executive Chris Kastner said: “Partnering with Babcock strengthens HII’s ability to deliver ROMULUS for the ARMOR Force and to support the Royal Navy’s vision for the future fleet.”
HII says the prototype vessel remains scheduled for initial sea trials in the fourth quarter of 2026, as development continues in parallel with autonomy testing and industrial partnerships.
I really hope we develop our own autonomous operating system. I can’t see relying on US defence contractors for software being a good place to be.
QNX, VxWorks are readily available for Naval systems
Military systems require some real-time/pre-emptive OS event processing.
Commercial OS’s are not suitable for combat systems
We can’t rely on ourselves either Jim.
HMS Flea Collar.
(Hope I don’t upset anyone with this comment)🙂
Only the Romans 😀
😁 haha, yes they don’t like humour, much prefer hate and nastiness it seems !
Who did you annoy recently?
Well, it was either one person with various different names, or various different people with the same lack of humour issues. 🤔😁😁
Bothered ! 🥱
Will this Romulus design be able to handle high seas states? It looks fine in flat seas but is it shaped and built for anything rougher? It looks like its decks could easily get flooded in high seas. Why not go for a fleet of less but more capable smaller cargo container type vessels which have lean crews already? There’s probably commercial tyoe vessels around that could be utilised right now. This might be a bit bonkers but couldn’t the two Wave class oilers be re-purposed for something if they’vestill got some life them?
What exactly are you going to repurpose tankers for. And no, commercial ships are too slow to be escorts for surface combatants.
Too slow? I bet the Waves will probably travel faster than the Romulus’ and can be used to carry them to and ftom their ops area. Waves could be repurposed as a hybrid mothership that could load on/off/rearm/ refuel a pair of large usvs off its foredeck. A bit like a multi purpose cargo ship carrying project cargo, types that have seen while working at Swire Shipping and OOCL Shipping Line. Just seems a waste that two reasonably youngish ships have been binned.
You have no idea about ship design do you, apart from the fact that Romulus is obvs going to be faster than a wave, you then want to lift 2 several thousand ton ships on and off a tanker hull…..
Okay Romulus can do 25kts 2500nm according to HII site. Waves up to 20kts accordingto Wikipedia. Not to big a deal.
Regarding shipping, I’m not sure what your background is and please tell us. I’m no military expert but have been around shipping in global supply chain roles for over 30 years. Project type cargo can be absolutely enormous, out of gauge and extremely heavy and yet can be and is transported all over the world. If these usvs are so bloody big and heavy you might as well build a corvette or frigate.
No? The whole point is that we can’t crew more escorts, these are to accompany the escorts.
Lifting ships like this require giant semi submersible vessels. Not a converted tanker
Just hope the battery lasts .