Exercise Overview
The Portuguese Navy is conducting "REPMUS" (Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping with Maritime Unmanned Systems) from September 8-25, 2025. This annual exercise, held since 2010, takes place in waters off Sesimbra and Troia Peninsula south of Lisbon, serving as the world's largest unmanned maritime systems exercise platform with approximately 2,000 participants from industry, government, and academia.
Exercise Objectives and Scale
Primary Objective: To test unmanned maritime systems equipment, procedures, and tactics while enhancing operational capabilities and promoting technological development.
Participating Organizations: Approximately 2,000 participants from the Portuguese Navy, industry, universities, research institutions, and NATO member countries. The concurrent NATO exercise "Dynamic Messenger" strengthens joint training and interoperability among member nations.
Technical Initiatives
Unmanned Systems Utilization: The exercise encompasses mission execution using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned surface vessels (USVs), and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs).
GEOMETOC Capabilities: The Portuguese Navy Hydrographic Institute (IH) leverages geospatial, meteorological, and oceanographic analysis and forecasting capabilities, significantly improving environmental characterization and predictive data collection and processing for operational support.
Strategic Significance
For Portugal, with its Atlantic coastline and remote island territories of Madeira and Azores, strengthening maritime defense is extremely important. The exercise enables enhanced maritime situational awareness, operational area information superiority, and personnel risk reduction, while validating emerging military technologies in near-realistic environments to improve operational effectiveness and reduce costs.