Anduril Industries has announced a major partnership with HD Hyundai Heavy Industries to design and produce a new class of autonomous surface vessels for commercial and defence use, including a variant intended to meet US Navy requirements under its Modular Attack Surface Craft programme, the company stated.
The firms aim to merge Hyundai’s large-scale shipbuilding infrastructure with Anduril’s autonomy and mission-systems engineering. The vessels are described as modular, software-defined platforms built in steel and designed to support interchangeable payloads for roles such as intelligence gathering, surveillance, electronic warfare and strike, according to the company.
Anduril said the design uses an open architecture and a central superstructure intended to maintain a full 360 degree field of view. The autonomy stack integrates propulsion, navigation and payload control to support dynamic mission changes, and the company argues that a software-driven approach can avoid vendor lock and supply-chain bottlenecks.
A prototype is already being fabricated in South Korea. Anduril said this phase will validate propulsion integration, power systems and ship automation using Hyundai’s industrial capacity before production moves fully to the United States. Future vessels, including those aligned with the MASC programme, will be built at the firm’s refurbished former Foss Shipyard in Seattle, which has been established as its initial US hub for autonomous surface vessel assembly, integration and testing.
The company said this approach is meant to accelerate US shipbuilding capacity at scale, citing the Pacific Northwest’s industrial base and skilled workforce. Anduril is also working with Hadrian as part of what it describes as an effort to modernise the wider manufacturing chain, including precision fabrication of structural and mechanical components.
The autonomous surface vessel effort represents a further expansion of Anduril’s maritime portfolio. The company links the programme to previous work on Ghost Shark, the extra large autonomous undersea vehicle developed with the Royal Australian Navy, and to existing platforms such as Copperhead, Seabed Sentry, Dive-LD and Dive-XL.
Is it just me or are nearly all of Anduril’s new products collaborations with established companies? Omen drone with Edge, Sea Spear towed sonar with Ultra Maritime and now naval drones with HHI.
Maybe they’ve found that as a new company they don’t have enough clout to win government contracts?
Anduril also announced a partnership with Rheinmetall recently