Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) announced that Halimar Shipyard has joined its network of industrial partners to support the serial production of its unmanned surface vessel platform.
Under this agreement, the Louisiana-based yard will construct complete vessels alongside Breaux Brothers Enterprises, where five of the USVs are currently under construction.
This expansion of manufacturing capacity aims to accelerate production schedules and meet growing demand from the US Navy and allied maritime forces, HII stated.
By utilising multiple production locations across the gulf coast, the shipbuilder intends to strengthen supply chain resilience and increase surge capacity.
HII noted that the vessel platform is designed to support a wide range of naval operations, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. These capabilities extend to mine countermeasures, strike operations, and the launch and recovery of both undersea and aerial unmanned vehicles.
It added that the platform uses a common manufacturing architecture and autonomy baseline to enable scalability across multiple vessel sizes. This standardised design is intended by the shipbuilder to reduce production complexity and accelerate the deployment of the autonomous vessels to active fleets.
