American shipbuilding giant HII is beginning to build a new family of autonomous, unmanned surface vessels dubbed Romulus, the company announced during DSEI in London, Breaking Defense reports.
The flagship vessel will be 190 feet in length and is under development in conjunction with Beier Integrated Systems, a Louisiana-based marine engineering firm; as well as commercial shipbuilding firms Breaux Brothers and Incat Crowther, both of which also have facilities in Louisiana.
The vessel itself will have a minimum range of 2,500 nautical miles, carrying “4 x 40 foot ISO intermodal containers” and will be “engineered for rapid, repeatable production,” according to a company statement.
Romulus is based on an offshore crew support boat and modified to operate autonomously, Duane Fotheringham, president of unmanned systems at HII Mission Technologies, told Breaking Defense in an interview today.
Fotheringham also said the first USV is expected to be completed in about 12 months and that once production is “up and running,” the company expects to build up to six vessels concurrently, and deliver four or five per year.
Eric Chewning, a senior executive at HII overseeing maritime systems, told Breaking Defense in the same interview that while Fotheringham’s business unit was leading the effort, other parts of HII would be involved, such as Mississippi-based Ingalls Shipbuilding which will assist with program management elements.
HII’s announcement follows the US Navy’s industry day and subsequent solicitation for its Modular Attack Surface Craft program, which Breaking Defense previously reported attracted a sizable crowd of contractors earlier this summer.
Chewning and Fotheringham did not directly address whether HII was pursuing that program, but the company’s description of Romulus — built to commercial standards, capable of carrying containerized payloads and designed to be mass produced — are all characteristics the Navy is seeking in its new USV program.
Further, Odyssey — an autonomy command and control software developed by HII which will be deployed on Romulus —has been “on more than 35 USV platforms with 6,000 operational hours in the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard and international allied programs,” according to a company statement.
“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,” the statement continued.
