Bluebottle USVs look to the East, Bull Shark USV makes a splash and drone repair under review in IODS 2026 day 2 highlights

The event has attracted an international line-up of senior defence leaders, including Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, incoming Chief of the Defence Force Vice Admiral Mark Hammond, United States Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Stephen Koehler and Australian astronaut Katherine Bennell-Pegg, attending the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre event from 26 to 28 May.

More than 250 companies from 12 nations will participate alongside more than 100 international and domestic delegations who are expected to attend the event.

Ocius looks East to Japan

It’s clear that uncrewed surface vessel manufacturer Ocius Technology is looking to East Asia, with new IODS marketing materials clearly aimed at the Japanese military market.

The company, headed by founder Robert Dane, is already riding high on a hard-earned wave of support from the Australian Government. Australia invested $176 million for the delivery of 40 new Australian-designed and built Bluebottle uncrewed surface vessels earlier this year.

“Look, (there’s) expansion into other markets and we’re in the Southwest Pacific, we’ve sold boats in New Zealand. We sold boats to the USA. So, we’re looking at expanding in other markets… it’s known we’re talking with Japan,” Dane said during an IODS interview with Defence Connect.

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“They’ve (Japan) got thousands of islands in their island chains. They’ve got similar problems that we have. They would be looking to have the same sort of solutions that we’re providing to Australia. Which is intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

“The validation by the Royal Australian Navy committing to acquiring Blue Bottles kind of gives us a stamp of approval that is the best in the world… It’s been a great validation of not only the technology but that the company is able to deliver.”

Dane also confirms that the company will be looking to adapt BlueBottle into other variant platforms, including longer-range, uncrewed aerial vehicle equipped and potentially strike versions.

“Companies from all over the world are coming to us with their kit and saying, ‘would you like to try this on the Blue Bottle?’ And our answer to that is always; look, if the customer wants us to do that, we'll do that, absolutely,” he said.

The company currently builds one new BlueBottle per month, however Dane confirmed they will focus on reducing that time to one-a-week and increasing staff levels to 180.

Explosive-jet ski concept makes a splash

Queensland engineering company Skapari has made a splash with their SD400X ‘Bull Shark’ explosive-laden uncrewed surface vessel at IODS 2026.

Skapari is pitching the SD400X as a miniaturised fast attack boat carrying 100kg of munitions for operations against coastal targets, surface vessels and for naval defence from warships.

The craft is ideally carried and then dropped from launch rails behind a warship to engage targets out to 125-200 nautical miles.

The hybrid attacker features a cruising speed of 25 knots, and a final attack ‘sprint’ speed of 35 knots.

Drone replaceability rather than lengthy repair delays

On the showroom floor, Luke Weekly from drone distributor Falcon UAV captured our attention with an interesting pitch for the future of drone warfare on the battlefield.

The vision he outlined was a future of drone warfare on the battlefield revolving around replaceability and minimalism. Soldiers should be able to build and replace parts or even complete simplified drones in the field to avoid lengthy repair and wait times.

“We’re focusing on that soldier-worn intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability being backpackable, mobile and being ready at the tactical-field edge,” he said.

“Survivability and replaceability is becoming increasingly more important and obviously the cost of putting another machine up in the air (is important).

“So we’re absolutely focusing with our partners on being able to rapidly… 3D print or reassemble units quickly back together (in the field), without having to then send it back off for three months and wait for something to come in or not be able to put it back into the air because of risk of potentially losing the unit.

“That modularity and payload swap-ability is really an area that where our partners are focusing on.”

“Another big area that we’re moving towards with some of our partners is swarming and FPVs because that’s also becoming a requirement, as you’re seeing in the geopolitical state at the moment.”

Robert Dougherty

Robert is a senior journalist who has previously worked for Seven West Media in Western Australia, as well as Fairfax Media and Australian Community Media in New South Wales. He has produced national headlines, photography and videography of emergency services, business, community, defence and government news across Australia. Robert graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, Majoring in Public Relations and Journalism at Curtin University, attended student exchange program with Fudan University and holds Tier 1 General Advice certification for Kaplan Professional. Reach out via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or via LinkedIn.