Greensea IQ Launches Bayonet Sweep Autonomous Hull Inspection Robot

12 August 2026
Edited By: Haley McQueen

Greensea IQ has introduced Bayonet Sweep, an autonomous underwater robot designed to search and inspect ship hulls and underwater structures. Bayonet Sweep provides navies, security teams, and port and harbor authorities with a rapid and effective way to inspect ship hulls without placing divers in the water.

(Image credit: Greensea IQ)

Where routine hull inspection focuses on maintenance, Bayonet Sweep is specifically built for force protection. Designed on Greensea IQ Core software and leveraging Greensea’s long tenure as a leader in underwater robotics for Mine Countermeasures (MCM) and Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), Bayonet Sweep is not only an autonomous robot, it also provides a complete data workflow for security, threat assessment, and mitigation. Operators can launch a vehicle, detect a hull anomaly, classify a threat, inform the operator, and then georeference its location—turning a slow and risky manual sweep into a repeatable, autonomous one. Sweep then produces a thorough aggregated hull record. The vehicle design is engineered as a configurable system for mission-specific inspections.

“We rely on ports and harbors worldwide for our infrastructure. With all of those vessels coming in and out, we have no way of knowing what is on the underside of those ships. We’ve taken the navigation and autonomy technology that we’ve built EverClean upon, the technology that allows an autonomous vehicle to crawl along the hull, and we’ve developed a security robot that can be deployed to sweep from stem to stern reliably and with high confidence to provide an operator 100% intelligence on the hull of that ship. Through the use of this autonomy and navigation, we can plug a vital hole in our port and harbor security infrastructure,” said Ben Kinnaman, Greensea IQ’s Chief Executive Officer.

Bayonet Sweep is part of the Bayonet mission suite, Greensea IQ’s line of expeditionary autonomous systems and operating software for MCM and strategic marine operations. This newest addition was evolved from the proven technology of Greensea IQ’s hull maintenance EverClean platform and tailored for security missions.

With the integration of Greensea IQ’s software systems, additional insight can be reported for a complete post-mission record. A single vehicle can run an assessment, or several can deploy at once to cover a rapid sweep for cohesive and informative operation.

Bayonet Sweep is powered by Greensea Core, the same open-architecture software used across Bayonet robotics, and operates on the same user interface family as the Bayonet mission suite, making the transition for operator training smooth. Sweep is a commercially available, self-hosted solution for which Greensea IQ provides operator training and continued assistance, as needed, through over-the-horizon support.