HII Unveils AI-Enabled ROMULUS Family of Unmanned Surface Vessels Powered by Odyssey to Strengthen the Fleet

September 09, 2025 at 03:00 AM EDT

NEWPORT NEWS, Va., Sept. 09, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HII (NYSE: HII), America’s largest military shipbuilder and a global leader in autonomous maritime systems, today introduced ROMULUS, a modular, AI-enabled family of unmanned surface vessels (USVs) powered by HII’s Odyssey Autonomous Control System (ACS) software suite.

ROMULUS 190, the flagship of the ROMULUS family, is currently under construction. Built on a commercial-standard hull, it is engineered for rapid, repeatable production and immediate mission readiness. Designed for speeds exceeding 25 knots, the 190-foot vessel is capable of a minimum range of 2,500 nautical miles (nmi) carrying 4 x 40 foot ISO intermodal containers on the payload deck. ROMULUS 190 is being developed in partnership with Breaux Brothers, Beier Integrated Systems, and Incat Crowther.

ROMULUS is designed to meet the current and emerging requirements of the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, joint forces, and allies. It delivers high-endurance, sustained open-ocean autonomy with a focus on lethality, cost efficiency, and scalability.

“The future fight demands speed, agility, and resilience, all embedded in the Odyssey-powered ROMULUS family,” said Chris Kastner, HII president and CEO. “By matching world-class shipbuilding with decades of unmanned systems expertise, we are delivering a mission-ready, swarm USV capability built for the next generation of operations.”

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An image accompanying this release is available at: https://hii.com/news/hii-unveils-ai-enabled-romulus-family-of-unmanned-surface-vessels-powered-by-odyssey-to-strengthen-the-fleet/.

Odyssey: Proven, Open, and Evolving
Odyssey ACS software suite has demonstrated performance on more than 35 USV platforms with over 6,000 operational hours in U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, and international allied programs. Odyssey’s intuitive interface and enhanced, customizable features generate the required mission behaviors for greater lethality and survivability with simplified control of unmanned swarms across domains, making it a force multiplier for the modern fleet.

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.

ROMULUS integrates technologies from Shield AI, Applied Intuition, and C3 AI with HII’s Odyssey for enhanced autonomy, object classification, and lifecycle sustainment.

Multi-Mission, Multi-Domain Flexibility
ROMULUS’s reconfigurable design supports teaming across surface, subsurface, and air domains for missions including counter-unmanned air systems (C-UAS), intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), strike operations, and the launch and recover of unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

Enhanced-Domain Advantage with HII’s REMUS UUV
Paired with HII’s proven REMUS UUVs, ROMULUS significantly extends undersea reach, closing anti-submarine warfare sensing gaps and keeping manned platforms at a safer standoff distance. REMUS’s decades-long track record in mine counter-measures (MCM) missions accelerates clearance operations and reduces fleet risk. Together, ROMULUS and REMUS deliver a scalable dual-domain solution across surface and subsurface missions.

Reinforcing HII’s Leadership
With ROMULUS, HII reinforces its position as the global leader in durable, autonomous unmanned systems. Developed with support from HII’s Dark Sea Labs Advanced Technology Group, ROMULUS takes its place alongside the proven REMUS UUV line, of which more than 700 have been delivered to over 30 nations and more than 90% are still operational after more than two decades. Together, ROMULUS and REMUS, powered by HII’s Odyssey autonomy, form a dual-domain family of unmanned platforms that expands operational reach, maximizes mission flexibility, and ensures dependable performance across the full maritime spectrum.

Key ROMULUS Capabilities:

Modular, Open Architecture: Built on open standards, including Unmanned Maritime Autonomy Architecture (UMAA), Robot Operating System (ROS), and Data Distribution Service (DDS), Odyssey ensures compatibility with U.S. Navy autonomy requirements and control stations now and into the future. Odyssey’s modular architecture also allows for rapid reconfiguration and integration with modular payloads, new sensors and systems.
Multi-Agent Autonomy: Odyssey enables control of either individual assets or swarms, a key capability for enabling the future fight. Odyssey’s mission library delivers high-level autonomy with ease in executing rapid single-agent tasks or complex, multi-agent scenarios in coordination with crewed and unmanned platforms. Secure data management enables instant analytics or detailed post-mission review, while its modular design supports seamless integration of customer or third-party sensors, payloads, algorithms, and interfaces.
Intelligent Operations: Autonomous health monitoring, sensor fusion, and perception deliver intuitive mission planning, real-time situational awareness, and diagnostics. Navigation is compliant with the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS), ensuring operational reliability in all conditions.
Fleet Integration: Designed to align with future fleet Concepts of Operations (CONOPS), supporting unmanned and optionally manned missions and integrated operations with aircraft carrier strike groups and surface action groups.

Learn more at https://HII.com/romulus/.

About HII
HII is a global, all-domain defense provider. HII’s mission is to deliver the world’s most powerful ships and all-domain solutions in service of the nation, creating the advantage for our customers to protect peace and freedom around the world.

As the nation’s largest military shipbuilder, and with a more than 135-year history of advancing U.S. national security, HII delivers critical capabilities extending from ships to unmanned systems, cyber, ISR, AI/ML and synthetic training. Headquartered in Virginia, HII’s workforce is 44,000 strong. For more information, visit: