Helsing, the leading European defence technology company, today unveils Lura and SG-1 Fathom to digitalise and defend the oceans. Learning from Helsing’s experience in the air and land domains, Lura is a software platform and advanced AI system developed from first principles to rethink maritime surveillance. The system uses autonomous mass that is sovereign, scalable and affordable to detect threats in the subsurface domain.

The UK's National Oceanography Centre (NOC) has renewed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Royal Navy, reinforcing a long-standing partnership in marine science and technology. The MOU, which includes collaboration with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), the Ministry of Defence (MOD)’s science and technology organisation, underscores a shared commitment to fostering innovation and advances in autonomous and robotic underwater systems.

Blue Water Autonomy, Inc., the technology company building autonomous ships for the U.S. Navy, emerged from stealth today, and announced $14M in seed funding from Eclipse, Riot, and Impatient Ventures. The company is building a completely unmanned and highly producible ship that can serve many missions on the open ocean.

Teledyne Marine unveils the Teledyne Compact Navigator, a ground-breaking, ultra-compact and advanced autonomous integrated navigation solution that redefines performance in a small form-factor, at Ocean Business 2025.

Saildrone, a world leader in maritime autonomy, in collaboration with Thales Australia, has successfully demonstrated the integration of the BlueSentry thin-line towed array with the Saildrone Surveyor, creating a groundbreaking system for autonomous long-endurance undersea maritime domain awareness (MDA). The project, funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), marks a significant leap forward in persistent, real-time, undersea surveillance.

An ocean robot developed and operated by the UK’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC) has made a chance encounter of a Nessie kind during engineering trials in Scotland’s famous Loch Ness.

British Defence jobs have been boosted and sailors will be better protected as the UK’s first of a series of cutting-edge Maritime Mine Counter Measure (MMCM) systems has been delivered to the Royal Navy. The new capability consists of an Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) – 12m long Royal Navy Motor Boat (RNMB) ARIADNE – as well as sophisticated off-board payloads and a Remote Command Centre (RCC).

Maritime Tactical Systems (MARTAC), an innovator in Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs), along with Sealartec, an innovator in Autonomous Launch & Recovery Systems (ALARS), is proud to unveil a fully Autonomous Launch & Recovery System, whereby MARTAC’s MANTAS T8 (2.5 m) and T12 (3.6 m) Systems can be autonomously launched and recovered from MARTAC’s Devil Ray T38 (11 m) System. It is widely recognized that the ability to autonomously launch and recover USVs is a critical factor in facilitating swarming missions and harnessing the full potential of unmanned systems in the marine domain. Achieving this in relevant sea conditions with minimal reliance on human intervention, while ensuring speed and repeatability, is essential.

The raise marks a new phase in advancing autonomy for naval and maritime missions. With this funding, Saronic plans to build Port Alpha, a next-generation shipyard capable of delivering new classes of unmanned ships at the speed and scale needed to protect and defend the maritime domain. Port Alpha will enable the expansion of Saronic’s Autonomous Surface Vessel (ASV) fleet into medium and large-class autonomous ships for defense applications.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded a contract to a team led by Saab, Inc.’s newly formed accelerator, “Skapa by Saab”, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to contribute to the Autonomy Standards and Ideals with Military Operational Values (ASIMOV) program. The DARPA- ASIMOV program “aims to develop benchmarks to objectively and quantitatively measure the ethical difficulty of future autonomy use cases and readiness of autonomous systems to perform in those use cases within the context of military operational values”.

The Royal Navy has taken a step closer to deploying autonomous mine hunting technology on front-line operations after a successful trial with an autonomous boat in Scotland.

Saab has signed a contract with the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for mine countermeasures missions.

Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Lisa Franchetti toured Boeing’s Orca Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (XLUUV) manufacturing facility, met with Boeing contractors and Sailors assigned to Unmanned Undersea Vehicles Squadron (UUVRON) 3, and gave remarks about the importance of having robotic multi-mission submersibles in the fleet, Dec 6.

Vatn Systems, a leading defense technology company building autonomous underwater vehicles for the US military and allies, today announced it has raised an oversubscribed $13 million seed round, bringing total funding to $16.5M. The round was led by DYNE Ventures with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, RTX Ventures, In-Q-Tel (IQT), Propeller Ventures, SAIC Ventures, Cubit Capital, Fortitude Ventures and existing investors that include Centre Street Partners, The Veteran Fund, Blue Collective, and Decisive Point.

A team of British engineers based in Portsmouth has successfully demonstrated a new type of autonomous submarine, developed specifically for military use, off the south coast of England.

Manta is a technology company that provides solutions for marine autonomy. With a global operational and sales organization, Manta supports its customers worldwide with life-of-field services and cutting-edge seismic acquisition solutions.

Thales and Exail have been selected by the French defence procurement agency (DGA) to deliver eight, plus eight more in option, Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV). This extended version of the A18-M AUV will integrate the SAMDIS 600 sonar for the SLAMF program (the French Armed forces programme, supervised by the DGA, which aims at renewing the French Navy mine warfare capabilities with massive use of unmanned systems).

C-Power today announced subsea data collection and delivery provider Tiburon Subsea has joined the company’s Partner Engagement and Co-development (PEC) Program as a collaboration partner.