Special Report: Netherlands Navy trials unmanned task force C2

The RNLN tested its manned/unmanned ‘hybrid navy' construct at MUST in June 2026. The RNLN's Geosea is pictured with Interceptor and Fender (foreground) USVs. (Netherlands Ministry of Defence)

The Royal Netherlands Navy's (RNLN's) inaugural maritime unmanned sea trials (MUST) activity – conducted from its Den Helder base in June 2026 – sought to test command and control (C2) of its task force maritime uncrewed (TFMU).

As detailed in its ‘Future Vision Maritime Uncrewed' strategy, published in April 2026, the RNLN is developing a ‘hybrid', manned/unmanned force structure.

The MUST activity, lasting five weeks, involved unmanned systems from each maritime domain, including:

The RNLN research ship MV Geosea ; the amphibious ship HNLMS  Johan de Witt ; and the Damen patrol vessel DSS  Galatea – a dual-mode (manned/unmanned) platform deployed as a manned, at-sea (C2) centre – also participated.

The MUST mission was to use UAVs and USVs to find, identify, and verify a vessel of interest at sea, and then to employ UUVs to see if it was conducting sub-surface activities threatening critical undersea infrastructure (CUI).

An operational experimentation (OPEX) was conducted with the RNLN's new, bespoke unmanned system C2 software, IDUS (Intelligent Distributed Uncrewed Systems). IDUS proved effective at unmanned maritime vehicle (UMV) integration, and in amalgamating UMV sensor data into the RNLN's CAMS/Force Vision Guardion combat management system (CMS). The indigenous Guardion is deployed across the fleet: for MUST, a bespoke, standalone version was fitted onboard Geosea .

IDUS has been developed over several years. It was tested at the Portuguese Navy/NATO co-hosted Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping with Maritime Unmanned Systems (REPMUS) 2025 exercise in Portugal. There, two Dutch UAVs used IDUS for tasking collaboration.