According to the company’s co-founder Vib Altekar, the drones can mitigate challenges, such as bandwidth limitations, dynamic vessel conditions, and susceptibility to interference and jamming.

“At IBP 24.1, Saronic showcased how Cutlass can mitigate these challenges, extending C2 networks and relaying crucial information on the water, thereby empowering commanders with enhanced warfighting capabilities,” Altekar explained.

Tom Keane, senior VP of Engineering at Anduril Industries, lauded the collaboration in integrating Lattice with diverse unmanned systems at IBP 24.1, “facilitating resilient, reliable, and low-latency command and control of diverse multi-domain unmanned systems.”

“Saronic was a great mission partner at the exercise, seamlessly integrating Anduril hardware and software to achieve mission objectivism,” Keane noted.

Boosting the development of autonomous maritime vessels

Last year, Saronic raised $55 million in private capital to advance research, development, and production of autonomous maritime vessels as a potential component for the “Replicator” program. 

“What this fundraise allows us to do is accelerate development, invest in manufacturing and scalability of our platforms, and also invest in coastal testing, so that we’re not just building the advanced technology, manufacturing the advanced technology at scale, but we’re also testing five days a week so that we have the hardware reliability data that the Navy needs, but also the software autonomy, feeding back into our simulation environment that’s constantly improving and adapting,” the company’s CEO and co-founder Dino Mavrookas explained in an interview last October.

This strategy aims for the swift deployment of swarms of aerial and maritime drones to deter a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. 

According to US Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, the initial fleet of unmanned craft for the initiative will require approximately $1 billion, allocated across fiscal years 2024 and 2025 in two installments.

Countering China’s military “mass”

At the National Defense Industrial Association’s Emerging Technologies conference last August, Hicks emphasized that the most significant perceived threat from China to the US lies in its military “mass” – the sheer number of ships, aircraft, and personnel it can mobilize. She also underscored China’s increasing proficiency in anti-access or area-denial capabilities.

Thus, the “Replicator” program marks its initial progress towards producing cost-effective, capable, and expendable drones for the US military. Furthermore, Hicks also emphasized that the “Replicator” program will adhere to the Department of Defense’s responsible and ethical guidelines for AI and autonomous systems, building upon its decade-long leadership in this domain.

Additionally, she also noted that the essence of the “Replicator” program is to “outmatch adversaries by out-thinking, out-strategizing, and outmaneuvering them; we augment manufacturing and mobilization with our real comparative advantage, which is the innovation and spirit of our people.”