At Indo Pac 2025, Greenroom Robotics and Austal Australia have announced that, following extensive trials and successful testing, future Austal vessels have the option to include Greenroom’s GAMA and Lookout+ technology to transform them into fully autonomous vessels. Significantly, this unique collaboration aims to achieve rapid autonomy and AI integration, creating intelligent maritime systems in as little as five days, while competitor solutions on the market take weeks or months.
This is a major milestone in their Strategic Partnership Agreement (signed in September 2024), which brings together Australia’s strategic shipbuilder and leading maritime autonomy company, to redefine the future of shipbuilding.
The ground-breaking technology is on demonstration for media to try via a simulation at Indo Pac at the Austal booth.
Austal has been working with Greenroom Robotics since 2023, with Austal providing a mentoring role as Greenroom scales up and grows globally. Both companies are headquartered in Western Australia. Greenroom has 32 employees, Austal has 4,479.
Greenroom Robotics’ GAMA and Lookout+ technologies turn any boat into an autonomous surface vessel using vision-based AI through the boat’s existing cameras and CCTV systems. These technologies will work seamlessly with Austal’s proven platform management system, MARINELINK Prime, to offer reliable and safe navigation of vessels, including collision avoidance.
During the Royal Australian Navy’s Patrol Boat Autonomy Trial (PBAT), the integrated software successfully executed 148 autonomous collision avoidance manoeuvres over a 705-nautical-mile trial. This formed a strong foundation for autonomy integration opportunities across Austal vessels.
Austal CEO, Patrick Gregg, said: “By bringing together Austal’s shipbuilding excellence and Greenroom’s advanced AI and autonomy software, we’re creating the best of both worlds for the future of Australian shipbuilding. It’s an example of how established industry and emerging innovation can work hand-in-hand to deliver real capability, quickly.
“We are delighted to be working with Greenroom Robotics to develop an integration package to offer to other companies so their clients can leverage the benefits of autonomy and AI now and into the future.”
Greenroom Robotics co-founder and COO, Harry Hubbert said: “Our partnership with Austal is creating best in class capabilities for Australia’s shipbuilding future. Austal are very forward thinking and build great ships. Greenroom are a software company providing autonomous navigation and situational awareness software. What we do is hard, and what they do is hard. This partnership meshes the best of our skill sets to solve significant maritime problems together.
“Greenroom Robotics’ advanced maritime autonomy software and AI-powered optical radar reduces crewing requirements and enhances situational awareness. There’s no size limit for the technology. It works on any vessel.”
Image: Sam Abbott, Head of R&D, Austal and Harry Hubbert, co-founder and COO, Greenroom Robotics
