Rasmus Stute
Vice President and Area Manager Germany at DNV Maritime, based in Hamburg.
Rasmus Stute spoke for DNV when it signed a memorandum with the German shipbuilder Fassmer in September 2026, aiming at class approval in principle for crewless naval and government ships. Autonomy is "becoming one of the key pillars in defence", he said.
Last refreshed: 7 October 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Will navies accept a commercial class society's approval for robot warships?
Timeline for Rasmus Stute
DNV and Fassmer aim to class robot ships
Autonomous Systems: Land & SeaBackground
Rasmus Stute is Vice President and Area Manager Germany at DNV Maritime, the ship-classification Arm of the Norwegian group DNV, and is based in Hamburg, according to his Motorship conference speaker profile. The profile says he earlier ran DNV's approval work for Høvik, Hamburg and Gdynia and founded its Containership Excellence Centre in Hamburg.
His market is Germany, where yards build both commercial ships and naval and government vessels. In September 2026 he was DNV's public voice on the Fassmer memorandum covering crewless ship approval.
That role puts him at the point where classification, the technical approval that lets a ship be insured and operated, meets the defence market's growing interest in crewless craft.
His remit now includes classing robot warships
DNV and Fassmer put their names to the memorandum during the Hamburg shipbuilding fair; the deal was made public on 10 September 2026, with Stute as DNV's spokesman. The two firms want an approval in principle for crewless and remotely controlled naval and government ships, drawing on the DNV rules for such vessels in force since January 2025.
For Stute the deal extends a commercial approval career into defence. His remark that autonomy is "becoming one of the key pillars in defence" frames DNV's pitch: German naval builders can get class assurance for crewless designs before a navy has publicly asked for it.
