Ghostworks unveils MRLN, the Multirole Remote Logistics Node

At the 2026 Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit, hosted by U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick at the U.S. Army War College, Holland, Mich.-based Ghostworks unveiled MRLN (Multirole Remote Logistics Node), a remote-pilot autonomy system designed to enable a single vessel to perform multiple mission types under human-in-the-loop command and control. MRLN is not a vessel itself, but a mission systems layer that can be integrated across Ghostworks’ proprietary M-Hull and powercat hull forms, allowing each vessel to serve as a multirole platform.   MRLN was developed with three partners, each contributing a core piece of the system: Ghostworks designed, engineered, and built a 40-foot carbon fiber Minerva-class M-Hull, with speed, range, and payload currently unrivaled in the industry;general Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) brought decades of autonomy and sensor experience from remotely piloted aircraft and adapted it to the maritime domain and Mercury Marine contributed its drive-by-wire propulsion technology and Command Gateway product, giving MRLN the endurance to transit contested and congested environments and to maintain station for extended periods in demanding conditions.   “For decades, naval planners have had to accept that speed, range, and payload pull against each other,” said Brooke Kerschbaumer, CEO, Ghostworks. “Optimize for one and you sacrifice the others. Our vessels were architected to break that constraint. MRLN gives operators human-in-the-loop command and control over that tradeoff space, mission to mission, without changing platforms.” Ghostworks said its vessel designs are intended to address the longstanding tradeoff among speed, range and payload that has shaped naval procurement for decades. Rather than optimizing for one at the expense of the others, the company said it seeks to maximize performance across all three.   The company’s Minerva-class vessel can carry a payload of 17,500 pounds at a cruising speed of 30 knots and is designed to operate in Sea State 4 conditions. According to Ghostworks, Minerva is the first to incorporate MRLN, allowing operators to remotely control the craft across a range of missions, including fuel delivery, cargo transport and search-and-rescue operations. The company said MRLN can be deployed across its proprietary hull forms, providing operators with greater flexibility in balancing speed, range and payload. Ghostworks said MRLN combines a modular, subsystem-agnostic architecture with support for a range of payload capacities. The human-in-the-loop system allows a remote operator to maintain situational awareness while the vessel operates autonomously and to assume control at any time.      According to the company, operators can reconfigure mission profiles in the field, enabling the same platform to be adapted for different operational requirements. Ghostworks said MRLN is designed to operate independently with its own communications connectivity across a variety of environments. “Leveraging our development of world-leading autonomy for air-vehicles into the maritime domain is a natural progression,” said Jeff Hettick, vice president of GA-ASI’s Agile Mission Systems. “This partnership really highlights how bringing together the best in the defense industry can yield exciting new capabilities for our warfighters in a timescale that is relevant.”      “Our role was to prove that MRLN could meet the control and reliability demands of sustained surface operations,” said Carl Greiner, Director of Government & Advanced Maritime Systems, Mercury Marine. “This integration expands what’s achievable in a remote-piloted maritime system.”