Blue Ops partners with Haddy to 3D print unmanned boats

A static display of the Blue Ops 7-m Variant 7 USV at the company's headquarters in West Palm Beach, Florida. Blue Ops has partnered with Haddy to 3D print such boats. (Janes/Jeremiah Cushman)

In early April, Red Cat Holdings announced that its Blue Ops division had inked a strategic partnership with Haddy, a large-scale robotic 3D printing and distributed manufacturing company. Haddy will bring its “advanced agentic [artificial intelligence]-powered robotic production systems into the” company's Valdosta manufacturing facility to “support the development and production of unmanned surface vessels (USVs)”, the 6 April statement said.

“Using robotic 3D printing supported by agentic AI models that learn and adapt, teams can iterate designs more quickly and move into production with fewer delays, reducing timelines and continuously improv[ing] performance,” the statement said, adding that this “approach also enables a more on-demand production model, allowing Blue Ops to respond more quickly to evolving customer requirements”.

“I feel like the [3D-]printed boat has the potential to be” as disruptive as the shift from wooden to fibreglass boats in the mid-20th century, Barry Hinckley, president of Blue Ops, told Janes on 22 April at the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space exhibition in National Harbor, Maryland.

“The partnership also gives Blue Ops access to Haddy's distributed microfactory network, allowing production to be expanded or shifted based on operational needs, including the ability to support customers and missions globally. This enables vessels to be produced closer to where they are needed, helping reduce logistics challenges, and support faster delivery timelines,” the statement said.

It can also help scale production “in response to large or urgent orders, ensuring Blue Ops can meet customer demand without traditional manufacturing bottlenecks”, according to the statement.

Prototyping