HII delivers two autonomous vessels to U.S. Marine Corps

HII, one of only two nuclear-capable shipyards in the United States and the sole builder of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, has delivered two autonomous surface vessels to the U.S. Marine Corps under a Defense Innovation Unit contract, completing sea testing that validated the ROMULUS-25’s advanced autonomous capabilities in an operational maritime environment, the company announced May 15, 2026.

The Newport News, Virginia-based defense giant, currently building Ford-class carriers and producing components for Virginia-class attack submarines, is pushing well beyond its traditional shipbuilding roots through its Mission Technologies division, and the ROMULUS-25 delivery is the clearest evidence yet of how far that expansion has reached.

The two ROMULUS-25 unmanned surface vessels were delivered in December 2025 and subsequently supported what HII described as successful testing and demonstration of advanced autonomous mission behaviors at sea, per the company’s statement. The contract was awarded by the Defense Innovation Unit, the Pentagon’s technology accelerator established to bring commercial innovation into military service faster than traditional acquisition pathways allow, and specifically sought smaller form factor autonomous boat prototypes for Marine Corps requirements, a mission set that differs in important ways from the larger unmanned surface vessel programs the Navy has been pursuing in parallel, where platform size, logistical footprint, and deployment flexibility pull the requirements in fundamentally different directions.

The ROMULUS-25 is a 27-foot high-speed interceptor vessel capable of carrying up to 1,000 pounds of payload and reaching a range of up to 1,000 nautical miles, according to HII’s specifications. Those figures place it in a category that is considerably more portable and deployable than larger unmanned surface vessels like the Navy’s Overlord-class platforms, which stretch beyond 130 feet and require significant logistical support to transport and operate. A 27-foot vessel can be transported by road, loaded onto amphibious ships, and operated from expeditionary bases in ways that larger platforms cannot, which aligns directly with the Marine Corps’ expeditionary operating concept and its emphasis on distributed, mobile forces operating across the littoral environment with minimal logistical footprint.

Propulsion for the ROMULUS-25’s autonomous decision-making comes from HII’s Odyssey autonomy suite, an AI-based system that integrates multiple sensors and effectors to enable coordinated, cross-domain maritime operations, per the company’s description. Odyssey has accumulated more than 2,200 hours of autonomous operations during government-led tests and exercises over the past five years and has been deployed on more than 30 platforms, logging over 12,000 hours of successful at-sea operations in total across that broader deployment base, according to HII. That operational history matters in a domain where autonomous systems face the constant challenge of distinguishing between vessels, navigating complex maritime environments, and making decisions without human intervention in conditions that laboratory testing cannot fully replicate.

The Odyssey system’s modular open systems architecture enables integration with HII’s Minotaur targeting network, which adds AI-based contact recognition and identification capabilities and connects the autonomous vessel into broader mission-level operations rather than limiting it to standalone tasking, per HII’s statement. The ability to integrate a small autonomous surface vessel into a wider network of sensors, effectors, and command systems is what transforms a capable unmanned boat into a node in a distributed maritime force, and the Minotaur integration is what gives the ROMULUS-25 a role beyond simple reconnaissance or patrol.

Andy Green, executive vice president of HII and president of HII’s Mission Technologies division, described the delivery as “a strong recognition of HII’s deep experience and the maturity of our proven autonomous technologies,” per the company’s statement, and said the ROMULUS-25 “demonstrates how scalable, AI-enabled unmanned systems can extend the reach, endurance, and effectiveness of naval forces.” The scalability point is underscored by the ROMULUS-25’s position within HII’s broader USV family, which spans from 7-foot micro-unmanned surface vessels to the ROMULUS-190, a 190-foot aluminum unmanned surface vessel capable of carrying multiple containerized payloads. Offering that range within a single product family with a common autonomy architecture gives the Marine Corps and Navy a path to mix and match platform sizes based on mission requirements without changing the underlying command and control framework.

The Marine Corps’ interest in smaller autonomous surface vessels reflects the service’s evolving concept for operations in contested littoral environments, where large surface ships are increasingly vulnerable to precision anti-ship missiles and where the ability to disperse forces across many small, hard-to-detect platforms offers survivability advantages that concentrated formations cannot provide. The service has been developing its Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations concept, which envisions small Marine units operating from dispersed, austere locations across island chains and coastal areas, using unmanned systems to extend their sensor reach and logistical capacity without requiring the large support infrastructure that traditional amphibious operations demand.