NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) has awarded a research and development contract to UK undersea robotics company HonuWorx on behalf of Canada’s Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC).
The deal is the first R&D contract issued on behalf of a NATO Ally through DIANA’s Rapid Adoption Service, the alliance press service pointed out in a release on Tuesday.
HonuWorx will carry out an engineering study to extend the operating depth of its undersea systems, and will develop a high-fidelity simulation suite to test how the technology could perform in difficult operating environments.
“Autonomous subsea systems are evolving from data collection platforms toward the delivery of real capability,” HonuWorx chief executive Lee Wilson said.
Brian May, section head for scientific and engineering trials at DRDC’s Atlantic Research Centre, said the proposed system was first envisaged for the offshore oil industry and could support Canadian defence research in operating and maintaining future deepwater power and data infrastructure.
How NATO’s Rapid Adoption Service works
DRDC turned to DIANA and its Rapid Adoption Service to find a DIANA-linked innovator to meet a Canadian capability need, NATO said.
The Rapid Adoption Service is a DIANA framework that allows the organisation to award R&D and prototype contracts on behalf of Allies through an “opt-in programme”, with prototypes that are successfully demonstrated able to move into production without further competition.
“The Rapid Adoption Service is designed to help Allies move faster from identified capability need to real-world solutions,” said Jyoti Hirani-Driver, acting managing director of NATO DIANA.
HonuWorx was selected after taking part in DIANA’s Critical Infrastructure and Logistics Challenge in 2025 and was paired during Phase 1 with COVE, a DIANA accelerator site in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
DIANA’s Rapid Adoption Service supports NATO’s Rapid Adoption Action Plan agreed at the 2025 Hague Summit, which set a goal of cutting technology adoption timelines across the Alliance to a maximum of 24 months.
