Hanwha Teams Up With American Swarming-Boat AI Startup Havoc

Korean shipbuilding conglomerate Hanwha Ocean is actively working to expand its presence in the American defense market, starting with the acquisition of Philly Shipyard last year and continuing with its plans to acquire a strategic stake in Austal, the owner of defense shipbuilder Austal USA. It has now announced a partnership with drone boat hardware and software startup Havoc AI, the maker of a collaborative autonomy stack that is designed to run on any vessel platform.

Havoc's software can control multiple vessels at once for collaborative combat and logistics missions, like convoy operations for ship-to-shore resupply missions in contested environments (autonomous sustainment). It has tested out its systems in the Pacific in trials for the U.S. Navy, with positive results. The idea is to obtain "task force"-like behavior from a group of unmanned surface vessels while keeping them under the command of a single individual. In addition to its software systems, Havoc has three physical vessel designs - two small craft and one larger 100-foot contender for the MUSV unmanned-vessel program (since renamed MASC).

On Tuesday, Havoc AI's CEO visited Hanwha's yard in Geoje and demonstrated a long-distance, remotely-controlled trial of its vessel technology from the site in Korea. The partnership offers something for both sides: Havoc gains access to a deep reservoir of manufacturing expertise, as well as Hanwha's naval Combat Management System (CMS) and system integration experience; while Hanwha gets exposure to cutting-edge naval autonomy tech.

“We will leverage Hanwha Systems’ CMS and naval platform integration strengths, along with intra-group synergies, to work with Havoc AI and make tangible inroads into the global maritime unmanned systems market spanning Korea and the United States,” said Ryu Moon-Ghee, head of the Naval Business Division at Hanwha Systems.

Havoc AI's swarming technology sets it apart in an increasingly crowded field of unmanned maritime systems. The most successful operator of drone boat technology, Ukraine's HUR intelligence service, has leveraged multi-boat attacks to great success; AI swarm control would make that approach easier. In Hanwha, Havoc has found the only Korean partner company with a shipyard and workforce on U.S. soil. The combination may place them well for competitions to provide the next generation of autonomous craft for the U.S. Navy, one of the service's top acquisition priorities.