12AUG

OMS Group orders a second DriX vessel

1 min read

14:17UTC

OMS Group and Exail announced on 3 September that OMS had bought a second DriX O-16 uncrewed surface vessel for seabed survey, route verification and monitoring on subsea-cable installation campaigns.

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TechnologyAssessed

Key takeaway

A commercial cable-survey operator came back for a second Exail uncrewed vessel within six weeks.

OMS Group and Exail announced on 3 September that OMS had bought a second DriX O-16 uncrewed surface vessel, for seabed survey, route verification and monitoring on subsea-cable installation campaigns⁠¹. Cable-lay work needs the route surveyed before the ship arrives and watched while it works, and it is billed by the day, so an operator that repeats an order has usually made the first one pay.

Exail's first DriX O-16 completed sea trials flying a tethered drone and an electro-optical and infrared camera in July. The line from that trial to a second vessel in six weeks is short by the standards of this beat, where most items in a month are notices, memoranda and demonstrations rather than a buyer coming back for more.

The corporate label needs care. Exail still acts in its own name and signs its own contracts. Thales agreed definitive merger terms on 31 July, but the tender offer does not close until 2028, so anything sold today is sold by Exail, not by a Thales subsidiary.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Subsea cables carry data between countries beneath the sea. OMS Group uses uncrewed surface vessels to survey and monitor work around those cables. Buying a second boat suggests the company wants more capacity, but no schedule or contract value was published.

Sources:Exail

Mentions:Quaze Technologies →DriX O-16 →Thales →

First Reported In

Update #12 · Missile modules, no budget line

Exail· 5 Sept 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Tethered drone flies from robot boat

Exail's earlier DriX O-16 sea trials preceded OMS Group's second-vessel purchase.

Occurred 15 Jul 2026

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This Event

OMS Group orders a second DriX vessel

A repeat order from a commercial survey operator is the closest thing this market offers to a verdict on a platform.

Different Perspectives

Conservative opposition

The Conservative opposition called on the Government on 9 August to 'urgently audit' equipment for hidden Chinese components, after the Telegraph's K3 SCOUT report. No named MP has been quoted on the record; the call came at party level, alongside the Ministry of Defence's own 10 August statement that no data had been compromised.

Kraken Technology Group

Kraken Technology Group is a UK maritime-defence company based in Portsmouth that builds the K3 SCOUT, and crossed a $1bn valuation in July on a single-sourced $175m raise. The camera components reached the fleet under a third party's written security assurance, which the Platform Authority, which does not yet exist, was never positioned to check.

Navy Commercial

Navy Commercial at Whale Island published two notices on 5 August: 074032-2026, asking industry how to build a Platform Authority to certify uncrewed vessels, and 074351-2026, a GBP10m multi-role USV testbed for the Defence Chief Technology Officer. Responses on the Platform Authority close 19 August, ten days after the cameras were found transmitting to China.

HUMAIN

HUMAIN and Applied Intuition stated a 2030 target for thousands of autonomous trucks on Saudi logistics corridors. The announcement disclosed no order, fleet baseline or contract value.

Saildrone

Saildrone and Lockheed Martin demonstrated two JAGM launches from a Surveyor-class vessel at RIMPAC. The accepted record identifies no requirement, customer or production configuration behind the demonstration.

Taiwan Legislative Yuan

Taiwan's Legislative Yuan passed the Act at third reading with a small suicide uncrewed boat on the named development list. The NT$240 billion ceiling covers all unmanned domains, and the Act was not promulgated by 4 September.