Pace, price and persistence – new design philosophy revealed
September 9, 2025By Seawork Press FP
BMT
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BMT has unveiled its Modular Uncrewed Ship concept MODUS - focusing on adaptable solutions for specific operational needs.
The concept reflects the ambitions set forth in the United Kingdom’s Strategic Defence Review and broader industry trend towards larger more capable uncrewed vessels with greater use of autonomy, not just a one-size-fits-all vessel.
MODUS aims to unlock the benefits of autonomy and uncrewed vessels at scale. Working to a new design philosophy focussing on pace (speed of production), price (cost effective mass) and persistence (high availability) the project has developed pre-concept designs for a medium USV (40 metres) and a large USV (75 metres).
Will Alexander, Global Business Development Lead - Maritime Autonomous Systems at BMT, commented, “Many navies are facing challenges including lack of mass, crew shortages, spiralling cost of building, operating and sustaining complex warships and keeping up with the pace of technology development.
“The need to adapt is clear and urgent. This requires a change of mindset. MODUS represents a new way of thinking and is a step towards a hybrid fleet where crewed and uncrewed platforms operate together to overcome these challenges.
“Our intent with MODUS is to help shape thinking, provide a credible vision and invite collaboration,” adds Alexander. “From autonomy providers to system integrators, we are open to working with partners to accelerate this concept to its next stage of maturity.”
Jake Rigby, Global Head of Innovation & Research at BMT, commented, “MODUS is not just one design; it is a family of designs with an intrinsic design philosophy to minimise vessel cost and add affordable mass to existing naval fleets: working alongside crewed assets as a mixed fleet solution.
“Crucially, our approach allows us to adapt each MODUS variant for specific user cases - enabling true scalability and customisation in response to operational needs, which distinguishes BMT from traditional design thinking in this space.
“We started with a fresh slate, working from the ground up first focusing on three core use cases of Military Data Gathering, Seabed Warfare and Anti-Submarine Warfare. We focused on simplicity of design, which ironically is often harder than a traditional design, as every decision is value engineered and scrutinised.
“In addition, by moving to an uncrewed design, we had the daunting but brilliant opportunity to throw out the rulebook of conventional design, answering questions of how we can build in survivability and questioning standard deck heights/subdivision if there is no-one on board to use it.”
While currently a research and development concept, MODUS possesses scalability and adaptability for a range of future missions, from naval operations to offshore hydrographic survey, asset inspection, environmental monitoring and maritime logistics.
BMT’s Maritime Autonomous Systems experts will shortly release a fuller technical paper, providing deeper insight into MODUS’s modular architecture, operational concepts and the design innovations shaping the future of uncrewed naval capability.
Image caption; From Heritage to Horizon - Built on BMT’s extensive heritage and foundational programmes (LUSV and HAWT), the MODUS family proposes a new narrative that scalable autonomous solutions shouldn’t just be one design and don’t need to have a common hull form; instead to get the most cost-effective solution in the autonomy space we shouldn’t be afraid to have different solutions for different tasks. This visualisation shows 15m, 40m and 75m elements of the family, showcasing how a stepping stone approach to development can be used to derisk the solutions, starting small and building up to larger blue ocean capabilities, pushing design horizons.
