Anduril is Revolutionizing Autonomous Warships with HD Hyundai Heavy Industries
Accelerating Surface Autonomy with Global Partners, Building Enduring Capacity in America
Anduril Industries and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries are joining forces to design and produce a groundbreaking class of dual-use Autonomous Surface Vessels (ASV). This partnership combines HD Hyundai's renowned shipbuilding expertise with Anduril's cutting-edge software-defined autonomy and mission systems integration capabilities. Together, they are developing a versatile family of surface vessels, including a variant tailored to meet the U.S. Navy's requirements under its Modular Attack Surface Craft (MASC) program.
The Significance of Surface Dominance
Control of the surface domain remains a cornerstone of maritime power. However, China's rapid expansion of its fleet at a three-to-one rate, coupled with its use of coast guard and maritime militia to challenge freedom of navigation in the Pacific, poses a significant threat. Similarly, Russia's activities in the Black Sea and Arctic further underscore the importance of maintaining surface dominance. The current defense strategies against commercial shipping drones using advanced military assets are not economically viable. To safeguard maritime security, the United States must regain its ability to rapidly build, deploy, and modernize ships.
The MASC program represents a pivotal shift in this direction. It aims to create a distributed, autonomous, hybrid fleet capable of operating and surviving in contested waters. Traditional, manned warships are insufficient to meet these demands. The Navy requires autonomous, modular vessels that can be produced swiftly, deployed in large numbers, and continuously upgraded through iterative engineering, software enhancements, and new mission payloads to complement the manned fleet.
The ASV: Modular, Adaptable, and Mission-Focused
Anduril and HD Hyundai's ASV is designed with modularity, rapid production, and mission adaptability in mind. Its open architecture supports interchangeable payloads, enabling the same vessel to perform diverse missions such as intelligence, surveillance, strike, electronic warfare, and more through quick reconfiguration. The vessel's central superstructure offers a 360-degree unobstructed view, ensuring continuous situational awareness and optimal payload performance.
The ship's autonomy software seamlessly integrates propulsion, navigation, and payload control into a unified networked system. This enables commanders to dynamically adapt missions and operate with enhanced situational awareness. The software-defined integration approach, designed with sustainment in mind, allows for interchangeability across hardware and software stacks, avoiding supply chain constraints and vendor dependencies. The vessel is constructed from steel, making it easier to weld, maintain, and repair using the existing domestic supply base, ensuring durability and scalability in manufacturing.
Prototype in Korea, Build and Scale in America
While shipbuilding technology is rapidly evolving, the principles for success remain unchanged. Anduril is collaborating with one of the world's leading shipbuilders to learn, validate designs, and bring this expertise to the U.S. The first dual-use ASV prototype is being fabricated in Korea, utilizing HD Hyundai's industrial capabilities to integrate propulsion and power systems, automate ship functions with autonomy, and prepare for U.S. production. Future vessels, including the MASC variant, will be entirely constructed in the United States.
Anduril has invested tens of millions of dollars to revitalize a retired shipyard in the Pacific Northwest, specifically the historic former Foss Shipyard in Seattle, Washington. This facility will serve as Anduril's initial U.S. hub for low-rate vessel assembly, integration, and testing of ASVs for the MASC program.
The Pacific Northwest, with its wartime legacy of Kaiser Shipyards and Freedom’s Forge, offers the necessary infrastructure, supply chain depth, and skilled labor to expand U.S. shipbuilding capacity. This region is ideal for revitalizing American shipbuilding and growing the maritime workforce.
Anduril and HD Hyundai are also partnering with Hadrian to modernize manufacturing across the supply chain and core ship components. Hadrian's precision automation and rapid fabrication capabilities will produce structural and mechanical components and sub-systems, reducing lead times and enabling flexible, automated, high-volume production, thereby strengthening U.S. maritime resilience.
Extending Anduril's Maritime Capabilities
Autonomous Surface Vessels represent the next phase in Anduril Maritime's evolution, building on the success of Ghost Shark, an extra-large autonomous undersea vehicle developed with the Royal Australian Navy. Ghost Shark demonstrated Anduril's ability to design, build, and deliver advanced capabilities within compressed timelines, an approach now expanding from the seabed to the surface. Together with Copperhead, Seabed Sentry, Dive-LD, and Dive-XL, the introduction of a new class of ASV can further enhance maritime kill chains. Each layer of this ecosystem reinforces the others: shared autonomy software, modular payloads, and common manufacturing infrastructure make the system more capable and cost-effective over time.
