HII, America’s largest military shipbuilder and a global leader in autonomous maritime systems, has announced plans for the production of four ROMULUS 151 vessels to be built by Breaux Brothers Enterprises in Louisiana, in addition to the ROMULUS 151 currently under construction. This announcement signals a rapid shift toward initial production as HII pushes to accelerate delivery of autonomous surface capability to the U.S. Navy and allied partners.
Andy Green, Executive Vice President of HII and President of HII’s Mission Technologies division, stated:
“ROMULUS represents a shift in how we deliver unmanned capability to the fleet. We are combining shipbuilding experience, scalable manufacturing, proven autonomy, and strong industry partnerships to move quickly from prototype to operational deployment. The progress we are seeing today — including these initial production vessels — reinforces that we are on a disciplined path to deliver meaningful capability at speed and at scale.”
Built for Scale and Mission Flexibility
ROMULUS is a modular family of AI-enabled USVs designed to meet current and emerging requirements for the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, joint forces, and allied partners. The platform supports a wide range of missions, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), mine countermeasures, strike operations, counter-unmanned systems, and the launch and recovery of unmanned underwater and aerial vehicles.
Engineered for serial, repeatable production, ROMULUS vessels combine endurance, global reach, and modular adaptability. The family is designed to scale across multiple vessel sizes while maintaining a common manufacturing approach and autonomy baseline.
Advancing a Scalable Manufacturing Model
The ROMULUS program is supported by HII’s expanding unmanned vessel production ecosystem, including its assembly facility at Breaux Brothers Enterprises and the High-Yield Production Robotics (HYPR) initiative. Together, these efforts are designed to transition unmanned vessel production from prototype builds to high-rate, digitally enabled manufacturing.
In March, HII released a plan outlining an expanded ROMULUS assembly facility at Breaux Brothers and introduced HYPR as HII’s initiative to apply industrial robotics and digital quality systems to unmanned platform manufacturing. By integrating automation, advanced tooling, and standardized workflows, HII aims to reduce unit costs, improve schedule predictability, and enable program-level delivery of unmanned systems aligned with evolving fleet needs.
Andy Green added:
“ROMULUS is engineered from the outset for scale. By aligning design, autonomy, and manufacturing, we are creating a production model that delivers predictable outcomes and positions us to meet growing demand for autonomous maritime capability.”
