Leidos and Havoc join forces to accelerate maritime and air autonomy

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md., April 20, 2026 — Leidos and Havoc have formed a partnership to integrate unmanned systems with collaborative autonomy technology, aiming to let a single operator command and coordinate fleets of platforms across contested areas.

The companies plan an operational validation in the fourth quarter of 2026 in which unmanned surface and aerial vehicles are expected to run under a single autonomy system. The demonstration is intended to preview how collaborative autonomous operations can be executed at scale in real-world conditions.

Elements of Havoc’s collaborative autonomy software will be integrated with Leidos’ Autonomous Vessel Architecture (LAVA) on select platforms, beginning with Sea Archer, a small unmanned surface vessel. The approach is designed to coordinate operations across systems while seeking to optimize performance, integration speed, and cost for specific missions. The collaboration also aims to define and deliver an architecture for an autonomous battlespace in which distributed systems sense, decide, and act together across air, surface, and sub-surface domains, including in communications-degraded environments.

“The future of warfare will be defined by how quickly and effectively systems can operate together across domains,” said Leidos Defense President Cindy Gruensfelder. “The Leidos and Havoc team will work to deliver integrated, mission-ready capability that gives commanders more options and operational advantage.”

“Leidos is a strong partner because their vessels and software are proven and trusted,” said Paul Lwin, Co-founder and CEO of Havoc. “By integrating Havoc’s autonomy across those platforms, we expect to compress integration timelines from months to weeks and move systems into production in days, not months. That speed, applied to Leidos’ breadth of platforms, is what makes this partnership so significant for defense customers.”

The partnership combines Leidos’ maritime platforms and systems integration expertise with Havoc’s collaborative autonomy capabilities. Depending on the mission, solutions may incorporate Leidos, Havoc, or a combination of both software architectures to provide scalable capability across existing and future force structures. The systems are designed to operate together to expand reach, improve coordination, and reduce risk to human operators.

Leidos Defense President Cindy Gruensfelder and Havoc co-founder and CEO Paul Lwin signed the agreement at the Sea-Air-Space event in National Harbor, Md., on April 20, 2026.

Havoc was founded in 2024 and is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island.