To systematically review the technological evolution of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) and explore the path of their convergence with intelligent ships, aiming to overcome the performance bottlenecks of individual USVs regarding endurance, computing power, and communication.

It reviews the centennial evolution of USVs, tracing the transition from radio remote control to fully autonomous navigation, and from single-agent operation to swarm collaboration. It provides an in-depth analysis of four core technologies: environmental perception, decision planning, motion control, and communication links. On this basis, the study focuses on the convergence trend between USVs and large intelligent ships, analyzing the "mothership-drone" cross-domain collaborative operational mode and the cloud-based management system driven by digital twins.

It indicates that current USV technology is undergoing an intelligent transition from "perception-avoidance" to "cognition-gaming". Furthermore, the "mothership-drone" collaborative mode, by combining the platform advantages of large ships with the high maneuverability of USVs, effectively resolves the challenges of individual USV operations in complex deep-sea environments and the "last mile" maneuvering difficulties for large intelligent ships entering and leaving ports, thereby achieving complementary advantages.

Collaborative mode represents a mainstream paradigm for future maritime operations. However, continuous breakthroughs are still required in areas such as regulatory adaptability, communication network security, and green energy propulsion. The findings provide theoretical references for constructing a new integrated air-surface-underwater intelligent maritime equipment system.