Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) has confirmed plans for the production of four new unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) by Breaux Brothers Enterprises in Louisiana in addition to the USV from the same series currently under construction.
The craft belong to a modular family of AI-enabled USVs designed to meet current and emerging requirements for the US Navy, the US Marine Corps, joint forces, and allied partners.
HII said the platform will support a wide range of missions, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; mine countermeasures; strike operations; counter-unmanned systems operations; and launch and recovery of unmanned underwater and aerial vehicles.
The family of USVs is designed to scale across multiple vessel sizes while maintaining a common manufacturing approach and autonomy baseline.
"We are combining shipbuilding experience, scalable manufacturing, proven autonomy, and strong industry partnerships to move quickly from prototype to operational deployment," said Andy Green, Executive Vice President of HII and President of HII’s Mission Technologies division. "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."
