A consortium led by ACUA Ocean and featuring Houlder, Ad Hoc Marine Designs, Trident Marine, and the University of Southampton has secured U.K. government backing to develop a new class of medium-sized uncrewed support vessels.
The Project MROS consortium was awarded funding in May 2025, as part of the U.K. Department for Transport’s CMDC program. Since the award, the MROS partners have been advancing designs for the 145 foot (43-meter) vessel, which is now progressing with resistance and seakeeping tank testing led by Southampton University Marine & Maritime Institute and the world-renowned Wolfson Unit.
Powered by a hybrid-electric propulsion system, the USV has been designed to operate both autonomously or optionally crewed. The prototype designs explore methanol fuel and consider efficiency, performance, maintainability, and emissions reductions compared to hydrogen, ammonia, and diesel variants.
Following the seagoing success of ACUA’s 46-foot (14-meter) Pioneer-class USV design, the new vessels will also feature a Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH), optimized for low motions and platform stability in high sea states. MROS comes four months after USV Pioneer became the first, and so far only, USV to achieve U.K. Maritime Coastguard Agency Workboat Code 3 regulatory approval.
Controlled in either autonomous or remote modes, or by an optionally-embarked small crew housed in a modular accommodation pod, the new vessel will be capable of operations in Sea State 6+, featuring DP1 station keeping, a 2,500 nautical mile range, 20-plus days endurance, and a sprint speed of more than 20 knots.
The MROS USVs are designed to satisfy a variety of tasks that require persistence and robustness, such as offshore logistics, maritime surveillance, subsea inspection and intervention, and the commissioning and decommissioning of offshore infrastructure. It offers a payload of 80 tons to permit the embarkation of cargo or specialist sensors and payloads. The vessel features a moonpool configured with room for twin launch and recovery systems for a variety of underwater payloads, such as tethered or untethered ROVs and XUUVs.
As with USV Pioneer, the MROS USV cargo and payload bays are configured to accommodate ISO-standard transport container (TEU and FEU) sized footprints, simplifying the mechanical installation, interchangeability, and logistical management of the vessel’s various tasks and maintenance.
“The MROS project builds on ACUA Ocean’s proven ability to deploy proven and certified vessels,” said Neil Tinmouth, ACUA Ocean CEO. “Most excitingly, this new design offers significant capability and cost-saving benefits over other USVs currently in development, delivering new solutions for a range of offshore commercial partners.”
“We firmly believe in this larger platform going beyond the norm and setting new standards of offshore operability,” said John Kecsmar, director of Ad Hoc Marine Designs.
“We are happy to continue to work with ACUA on the exciting Project MROS following our work on Pioneer earlier in the year,” said Rupert Hare, CEO of Houlder, Ltd.
“This is about turning credible autonomy into offshore capability and beyond, and toward this, Houlder will lead the development of a concept for launch and recovery (LARS) systems for a variety of underwater payloads, such as ROVs and XUUVs.
We will also contribute to hull design and optimization and the integration of the alternative fuel systems.”
More info www.ocean.tec
