Silent by design and tested at the world’s largest unmanned maritime exercise.
From August 31 to September 25, 2026, Portugal hosted REPMUS (Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping with Maritime Unmanned Systems) off the Troia Peninsula and Sesimbra, led by the Portuguese Navy.
REPMUS is widely regarded as the world’s largest maritime unmanned systems experimentation exercise, providing a unique opportunity to evaluate emerging technologies alongside allied navies and industry partners.
According to NATO, this year’s edition brought together more than 3,700 participants, 300 unmanned systems, 60 research and development companies and representatives of 36 navies.
NiKA took part as part of the UK team, in cooperation with RS Aqua, supporting anti-submarine warfare (ASW) activities. The objective was to deploy NiKA in the exercise area, collect underwater acoustic data, and evaluate its performance while operating alongside different autonomous systems and exercise targets.
What NiKA did
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Successfully completed 20 operational profiling and acoustic monitoring cycles
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Held its designated operating window for the missions, carrying out multi-hour underwater listening
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Logged passive acoustic signatures from exercise targets
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Transmitted its data by satellite
Working with RS Aqua’s Marlin
NiKA was also integrated with RS Aqua’s Marlin system. After listening silently at depth, NiKA rose to the surface and relayed audio of interest over Iridium Certus. The data was then processed automatically in Marlin Connect, alongside data from other sensors, to give a more complete picture of the mission.
The Marlin results were reported by RS Aqua: zero failures during the trial, and a new best near real-time detection time of 180 seconds, down from 330.
Why exercises like this matter
Exercises like REPMUS let us evaluate NiKA alongside other autonomous systems in a realistic operational setting, working with partners and allied navies in the same waters.
Our thanks to RS Aqua, the Portuguese Navy and all NATO partners involved in REPMUS.
Learn more about NiKA: NiKA – The Ultimate Solution for Maritime Surveillance | MetOcean
