Exail’s DriX O-16 uncrewed surface vessel (USV) successfully autonomously sailed a 1,100nm route to REPMUS 2025 which included navigating one of the world’s busiest maritime passages.
As per the firm’s press statement, the USV completed the non-stop voyage from La Ciotat on France’s Mediterranean coast to Troia, Portugal earlier this month in six days — a journey of about 1,100 nautical miles.
The drone boat’s route took it past the Balearic Islands and through the naval chokepoint of the Strait of Gibraltar, which it autonomously navigated without incident.
The firm’s statement noted: “Operated in supervised autonomy from Exail’s Remote Operation Center (ROC) in La Ciotat, the mission demonstrated endurance, situational awareness, and reliable decision-making in dense traffic.”
On its journey to the 2025 REPMUS (Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping Augmented by Maritime
Unmanned Systems) exercise, the USV carried out mapping of the sea floor using its onboard EM304 multibeam echosounder as a further demonstration of its capabilities.
The annual REPMUS exercises have grown to be the world’s largest experimentation event focused on uncrewed systems. This year it has been run in conjunction with NATO’s Dynamic Messenger (DYMS) 2025 operational exercise.
Together this year’s exercises have featured 37 countries, 276 individual uncrewed systems above, on and below the water, and around 3,700 participants.
Head of Maritime Autonomy Solutions at Exail Sébastien Grall commented: “With this unprecedented long-range transit, Exail’s DriX O-16 shows that large USVs are now an operational reality.”
He added: “As the first uncrewed platform to successfully execute such a mission, it sets a new benchmark in surface autonomy — safe, reliable, and mission-ready.”
- You can read more details on the Exail website