Lobster Robotics strengthens European naval capability at REPMUS

At this year’s REPMUS exercise in Portugal, Lobster Robotics supported the Royal Netherlands Navy with our Scout 3 uncrewed underwater system. Dutch operators reached independent use within three days of training. In the trials, Scout 3 consistently identified underwater targets within twenty minutes after target coordinates were received through the tactical network.

Scout 3 was integrated through TAK, used by the US Navy Mk18 Remus vehicles, which resulted in seamless transfer of contact detection to contact identification. Once deployed, the system operated fully autonomously, freeing crews to focus on higher-level tasks while Scout 3 completed identification runs. 

These results prove that Scout 3 delivers fast, actionable underwater identification with minimal user effort and is interoperable within NATO. 

From first design to Navy handover in record time

In December 2024 Scout 3 was still in design. By September 2025, working units were in the hands of the Royal Netherlands Navy, just nine months later. That pace outstrips traditional defence development timelines and edges ahead of NATO’s Rapid Adoption Action Plan, which aims for 24 months between need and deployment.

After completing phase two of NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator in early 2025, the Dutch Ministry of Defence awarded Lobster Robotics a contract within four months. This rapid transition from programme to procurement underlines the urgency nations feel when it comes to closing the underwater awareness capability gap, and the trust put in Lobster Robotics to contribute to the solution.

Stakeholders from allied nations can join the Concept Development and Experimentation stage as observers. This offers a direct way to see the capability at work in live operations and assess its value independently. Because Lobster Robotics already passed a competitive NATO DIANA selection, nations can move to single-source procurement without delay. This creates a unique opportunity to rapidly strengthen subsurface situational awareness capabilities, exactly what DIANA was designed to achieve.

Building traction through NATO operations

The Scout is gaining traction across the alliance, deployed by navies, experimented in alliance campaigns, and integrated alongside existing tools. Each deployment reinforces trust in performance, integration, and usability.

• Fraunhofer Digital Ocean Lab (Germany, 2024): an accredited NATO test facility where the Scout ran detection and identification trials against calibrated underwater targets.

• Navy experimentation (Estonia, 2024): collaborations using the Scout to develop procedures for Baltic infrastructure monitoring.

• SeaSEC Challenge Weeks (Netherlands, 2025): multinational trials on seabed cable/pipeline security.

• Task Force X Baltic (Baltic sea, 2025): NATO’s flagship campaign for rapid integration of uncrewed systems. Contribution not publicly disclosed.

• Sandy Coast (Netherlands, 2025): a national littoral exercise in the northern Netherlands. Contribution not publicly disclosed.

• REPMUS (Portugal, 2025): training the Dutch Navy to use the Scouts and interoperability with the US team to trial a ‘detection to identification time’ of <20 mins for various seabed targets

This blend of public and discreet engagements underscores that Scout systems are trusted in diverse NATO settings and with frontline stakeholders.

Why this matters: Dutch scale-up driving European autonomy

Europe is working to strengthen its defence industrial base and reduce reliance on non-European suppliers. This fits the EU goal of open strategic autonomy, the ability to act independently while staying connected internationally.

The Netherlands plays a key role in Europe’s defence technology base. Lobster Robotics, as a Dutch high-tech OEM scale-up, shows how national innovation contributes directly to European autonomy. By fielding Scout systems with allied navies and moving rapidly through NATO’s adoption pathways, we demonstrate both operational value and strategic autonomy.

For defence customers abroad, this proves Scout 3 is not only a capable system but part of a trusted European supply chain, ready to deliver.