MCLEAN, Va., Aug. 11, 2026 — HII (NYSE: HII) announced that the U.S. Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has officially recognized the successful completion of the company’s Production-Ready, Inexpensive, Maritime Expeditionary (PRIME) prototype project, featuring the Watcher small Unmanned Surface Vessel (sUSV), which is based on HII’s ROMULUS-25 Unmanned Surface Vessel and powered by HII’s Odyssey Autonomous Control System (ACS).

The DIU recognition follows HII’s delivery and successful sea testing of two autonomous Watcher ROMULUS-25 vessels in December 2025 under a DIU contract to develop smaller-form-factor autonomous surface vessels for the U.S. Marine Corps.

Developed in partnership with MetalCraft Marine, the Watcher sUSV successfully met the program’s technical objectives and is now positioned for a potential transition to production.

HII’s Odyssey ACS modular open systems architecture (MOSA) enables intelligent navigation, mission planning, collaborative behaviors, and multi-domain autonomous operations while allowing operators to rapidly integrate autonomy across multiple vehicle types and increasingly complex missions in contested environments. Its service-based design enables seamless integration with other mission-enabling technologies, enhancing mission effectiveness through AI-enabled contact recognition, identification, and edge-based decision-making.

In a memorandum to HII, DIU stated: “The HII Watcher sUSV has successfully demonstrated its appropriateness to address the Department of the Navy’s operational need for sUSV interceptors, capable of autonomously transiting hundreds of miles through contested waterspace, loitering in an assigned operating area while monitoring for maritime surface threats, and then sprinting to interdict a noncooperative, maneuvering vessel.”

The memorandum further concluded that HII achieved the prototype’s key technical goals and success metrics, supporting a potential transition to production under Other Transaction Authority (OTA) prototype agreements.

“This milestone is another example of HII’s strategy to rapidly transition innovative technologies from concept to operational capability,” said Duane Fotheringham, president of the Unmanned Systems group within HII’s Mission Technologies division. “As demand for autonomous systems continues to grow, HII remains focused on delivering proven, mission-ready autonomous solutions that strengthen naval readiness and provide our customers with greater operational flexibility.”

Mike Reed, General Manager of MetalCraft Marine, said, “This milestone is a significant accomplishment for the entire MetalCraft team and a strong validation of what can be achieved when our experienced boatbuilders combine their expertise with HII autonomy capabilities. The Watcher was engineered and built to deliver the speed, seakeeping, strength and reliability demanded by this mission. Successfully completing the government-led autonomy, seakeeping, performance and degraded-environment assessments confirms the quality of the aluminum platform and the discipline behind its design and construction. MetalCraft has built its reputation on high-performance aluminum vessels that perform when needed most, and this milestone positions the Watcher for the next step, from successful prototype to production”

The two ROMULUS-25 autonomous vessels completed extensive at-sea testing, successfully demonstrating advanced autonomous mission behaviors across a range of operational scenarios, including contractor demonstrations, government-led autonomy assessments, seakeeping and performance evaluations, and degraded-environment testing.

The PRIME initiative challenged industry to deliver commercially available, production-ready autonomous surface vessels capable of supporting maritime expeditionary operations. Following a full and open competition that attracted 116 solution briefs, HII was selected to design, build, and demonstrate its solution.

The ROMULUS-25, part of HII’s expanding family of autonomous unmanned surface vessels, is a high-speed interceptor capable of carrying payloads of up to 1,000 pounds and operating at ranges of up to 1,000 nautical miles.

HII is the world’s leading producer of autonomous underwater vehicles through its REMUS family of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), which are deployed by the U.S. Navy and allied partners worldwide for mine countermeasures, underwater reconnaissance, intelligence collection, environmental assessment, and critical seabed operations.

Together, Watcher, ROMULUS USV, REMUS UUV, and Odyssey ACS form an integrated ecosystem of autonomous maritime capabilities that can operate independently or collaboratively to extend fleet reach, enhance maritime awareness, and increase mission effectiveness across the full spectrum of naval operations.

The successful completion of the PRIME prototype further reinforces HII’s position as a leader in autonomous maritime systems and demonstrates the company’s ability to deliver production-ready autonomous capabilities that meet the evolving needs of the U.S. Department of War and allied navies.

Developed with General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. and Mercury Marine, MRLN enables Ghostworks’ M-Hull and powercat vessels to perform multiple missions from a single platform, without trading off speed, range, or payload.

CARLISLE, PA — July 14, 2026 — At the 2026 Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit, hosted by U.S. Senator Dave McCormick at the U.S. Army War College, Ghostworks today unveiled MRLN (Multirole Remote Littoral Node), a remote-pilot autonomy system that equips a single vessel to take on multiple mission types under human-in-the-loop command and control. MRLN is not a vessel; it is the mission systems layer that deploys across Ghostworks’ proprietary M-Hull and powercat hull forms, turning each vessel into a multirole platform.

Minerva, Ghostworks’ 40-foot carbon fiber M-Hull, under way. Minerva carries MRLN, the Multirole Remote Logistics Node, a remote-pilot autonomy system developed with General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and Mercury Marine and unveiled July 14 at the 2026 Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit.

MRLN was developed with three partners, each contributing a core piece of the system:

• Ghostworks designed, engineered, and built a 40′ carbon fiber Minerva-class M-Hull, with speed, range, and payload currently unrivaled in the industry.
• General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) brought decades of autonomy and sensor experience from remotely piloted aircraft and adapted it to the maritime domain.
• Mercury Marine contributed its drive-by-wire propulsion technology and Command Gateway product, giving MRLN the endurance to transit contested and congested environments and to maintain station for extended periods in demanding conditions.

Command of the iron triangle: the long-standing tradeoff between speed, range, and payload has quietly dictated naval procurement for a generation. Rather than optimizing for one at the expense of the others, Ghostworks designs its vessels to maximize performance across all three metrics. Ghostworks’ Minerva-class vessel can carry 17,500 lbs at a cruise speed of 30 knots and handles sea state 4. Minerva is the first to employ MRLN, allowing operators to control the craft remotely, mission to mission, whether delivering fuel to an isolated craft, carrying a high-value load, or racing to conduct a rescue. Deployed across Ghostworks’ proprietary hull forms, MRLN provides granular control over that performance tradeoff for the first time.

MRLN pairs its modular, subsystem-agnostic architecture with a proven, serious payload capacity. The system is human-in-the-loop: a human operator retains situational awareness even as the vessel runs autonomously and can take control of the craft at any time. Operators can reconfigure mission profiles in the field, giving commanders a platform that adapts to the fight instead of forcing the fight to adapt to the platform. That freedom is the point. MRLN was built to function anywhere, anytime with its own connectivity.

“For decades, naval planners have had to accept that speed, range, and payload pull against each other. Optimize for one and you sacrifice the others,” said Brooke Kerschbaumer, CEO, Ghostworks. “Our vessels were architected to break that constraint. MRLN gives operators human-in-the-loop command and control over that tradeoff space, mission to mission, without changing platforms.”

“Leveraging our development of world-leading autonomy for air-vehicles into the maritime domain is a natural progression,” said Jeff Hettick, vice president of GA-ASI’s Agile Mission Systems. “This partnership really highlights how bringing together the best in the defense industry can yield exciting new capabilities for our warfighters in a timescale that is relevant.”

“Our role was to prove that MRLN could meet the control and reliability demands of sustained surface operations,” said Carl Greiner, Director of Government & Advanced Maritime Systems, Mercury Marine. “This integration expands what’s achievable in a remote-piloted maritime system.”

Five Missions, One Platform

MRLN-equipped vessels are designed to support:

• ISR: persistent, low-signature surveillance in contested littoral zones
• Logistics resupply: autonomous delivery of materiel to forward-deployed forces
• Mine countermeasures: detection and neutralization without placing crews at risk
• Communications relay: extending network connectivity across dispersed operating areas
• Littoral combat support: direct integration into combat operations in shallow, contested waters

Summary

MRLN is a remote-pilot autonomy system, developed with GA-ASI and Mercury Marine, that equips Ghostworks’ M-Hull and powercat vessels to perform five distinct missions from one platform. By letting commanders reconfigure mission profiles in the field, MRLN breaks the traditional tradeoff between speed, range, and payload, delivering flexibility that the littoral battlespace has not had before.

www.ghostworksmarine.com