HD Hyundai and Anduril run a 368-ton drone ship through autonomous missions off California

South Korean shipbuilder HD Hyundai says it has put a large uncrewed surface vessel through a series of autonomous missions off Long Beach, California, together with the US defence technology company Anduril Industries. The company announced the trial on Monday 19 October and described it as the first demonstration of its kind by a South Korean firm in US waters. It did not give the exact date of the run.

The test ship was a modified 368-ton uncrewed surface vessel that the US Navy had previously operated. It carried VAone, a vessel autonomy package developed in-house by HD Korea Shipbuilding and Offshore Engineering, alongside Anduril's Lattice mission autonomy software. Over about three and a half hours, the vessel worked through autonomous navigation, changes of mission, formation sailing and emergency responses to engine and machinery failures. The whole run was relayed to a control station ashore, where attendees could watch the ship make its own decisions in real time.

About 40 people from both countries attended. Besides HD Hyundai and Anduril staff, they included representatives of the US Navy, the US Coast Guard, the classification society American Bureau of Shipping, the South Korean navy and South Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration, which runs the country's arms purchases. HD Hyundai was represented by Chang Kwang-pil, the executive vice president who heads its shipbuilding arm's future technology research institute.

VAone is built on HiNAS Prime, the autonomous navigation system made by HD Hyundai's autonomous shipping subsidiary Avikus. On top of that it adds a machinery management system that watches the condition of shipboard equipment, spots abnormalities and reacts on its own, and a damage control function meant to detect damage to the hull and take corrective action without a crew. HD Hyundai says that pairing VAone with Lattice showed a fully uncrewed vessel can handle navigation, engines, damage control and weapons autonomy. The published accounts of the trial did not describe any weapons carried on board or how the weapons element was tested.

The two companies plan to use the results to compete for US Navy uncrewed surface vessel programmes and to expand into a wider global market where demand is growing quickly. Chang said the trial confirmed that such a ship can carry out complex missions and cope with the range of situations it may meet after leaving port, and that HD Hyundai would keep refining the technology to take an early lead in the market.

The demonstration follows a partnership the companies announced in November 2025 to design a new class of autonomous surface vessel, with an eye on the US Navy's Modular Attack Surface Craft effort, a planned family of uncrewed boats that can take different payloads and be built and repaired in large numbers. Anduril said at the time that the first prototype was being fabricated in South Korea, while future vessels, including any version for that programme, would be built entirely in the United States at a former Foss shipyard in Seattle that it has been refurbishing.

Under that agreement, signed in Seoul, HD Hyundai was to build the hull at its Ulsan shipyard and Anduril was to fit the mission systems in the United States, with the prototype due in 2026. Because US law bars the navy from buying warships built abroad, HD Hyundai said it planned to make components such as hull blocks in South Korea and carry out final assembly in the United States for any production vessels. The reports on this week's trial, which used an existing former US Navy hull, did not say whether that purpose-built prototype has been finished.

South Korean shipbuilders, including HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and Hanwha, have been pushing into the US defence industrial base, mostly through partnerships with American companies, as Pentagon officials point to China's far larger shipbuilding output. HD Hyundai Heavy Industries has also signed agreements with the US shipbuilder HII and with Germany's Siemens.