SOF Week 2026: NSW expands commercial UxS push to maritime platforms as USASOC advances FPV drone effort
A U.S. Naval Special Warfare Combatant Craft Assault tows a MARTAC T-38 Devil Ray unmanned surface vessel during Exercise Balikatan 25 at Subic Bay, Philippines, May 5, 2025 (Photo: DVIDS)
The US Army Special Operations Command and Naval Special Warfare are accelerating efforts to integrate commercial uncrewed systems, with NSW broadening its solicitation to include USVs and UUVs alongside new requirements for ISR, kinetic operations and swarm technologies.
The US Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) and Naval Special Warfare (NSW) continue to update requirements to exploit commercial uncrewed systems (UxS).
On 5 May, NSW extended its UxS Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) solicitation beyond air platforms to include uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) and uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs).
The CSO is designed to assist NSW in the ‘development, procurement and integration of UxS in support of the joint force, special operations forces (SOF) and allied SOF’, according to the solicitation.
Updated areas of interest demand USVs capable of being reconfigured to conduct a range of missions, ranging from intelligence, surveillance
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