Zelim has been selected to demonstrate its AI-powered maritime safety and surveillance technology at REPMUS 2025, NATO’s largest naval exercise.
The participation follows a nomination from NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA), through its Rapid Adoption Service, which aims to fast-track the deployment of dual-use innovations across NATO forces.
This September, trials are taking place aboard a Portuguese Navy frigate, which was made available for technology demonstration by NATO, marking the first time the company’s technology is deployed on an active warship.
Zelim’s automatic man overboard detection system, known as ZOE MOB, together with ZOE Shield, which provides maritime situational awareness, has been installed on the NRP Dom Francisco de Almeida, a Vasco da Gama-class frigate.
The ship is sailing for three weeks as part of REPMUS (Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping with Maritime Uncrewed Systems), bringing together more than a dozen NATO-member navies to trial advanced maritime technologies under realistic operational conditions.
At the start of 2025, Zelim was accepted into NATO DIANA, a programme focussed on supporting companies with innovative technologies in the commercial world, which could help solve NATO priority challenges. During the 6-month programme, NATO DIANA evaluated the maturity of Zelim’s AI detection technology, which is commercially deployed in offshore energy and cruise sectors, and could see the potential for the technology to address significant challenges surrounding maritime situational awareness – particularly for large Naval assets.
“Participating in REPMUS, NATO’s largest naval exercise, marks an important milestone for innovators within the NATO DIANA programme” said James Appathurai, Managing Director at NATO DIANA.
“It is the perfect opportunity for these companies to demonstrate the value their solutions can provide in an operational context, while also making the most of end-user insights and feedback as they move closer to adoption and deployment. We are proud to see six different DIANA innovators participating this year, and we are confident that they will all rise to the challenge. Their technologies exemplify the kind of innovation DIANA was created to support – cutting-edge technologies with real operational potential, positioned to deliver real-world impact.”
Sam Mayall, Zelim’s CEO and founder furthered: “This is a significant milestone in the development of our AI detection technology. REPMUS gives us an invaluable opportunity to demonstrate both proven and experimental capabilities aboard a frontline naval vessel. We have been keeping offshore workers and cruise passengers safe over past year with our automatic MOB detection system, but we know that MOB incidents and threats to shipping are not isolated to the commercial world. We have been eager to show how we can protect Navy personnel and vessels and now, thanks to NATO DIANA, we have been given our chance.”
Zelim has installed cameras above the ship’s bridge and looking down the side of the vessel, forming part of a sensor system that will support two key functions during the exercise. First, automatic MOB detection – a system currently installed on Cruise ships and Offshore Rigs – and secondly, the trial of a prototype maritime situational awareness product ZOE Shield. Both products harness computer vision to detect and classify objects. MOB detects people falling down the side of the vessel, immediately alerting the bridge, while Shield detects and classifies potential threats such as unmanned surface vessels (USVs) and other hard-to-spot small craft such as rigid inflatable boats (RIBs).
“Our Defence situational awareness product is at an earlier stage of maturity, and this will be the first time our systems are deployed on a naval vessel,” Mayall added. “What we’re trialling at REPMUS is situational awareness to allow crews – particularly when the vessel is at anchor or operating in an area of known vulnerability – to quickly detect and classify multiple threats on the surface. ZOE will form an intelligent early warning system for both safety and defence at sea,” said Mayall.
Zelim’s participation in REPMUS is part of a broader strategic expansion into the defence sector. It follows the company’s selection for the US Navy SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) programme, working with US partner TEDGAR Consulting, to provide ZOE MOB for automatic detection of sailors falling overboard from US Navy Aircraft Carriers. Additionally, Zelim was selected as a finalist in BlueTIDE, a US Navy-led challenge focused on protecting subsea infrastructure from hostile uncrewed platforms – where ZOE Shield was demonstrated during a US Navy exercise in Newport, Rhode Island.
