Havoc AI Teams Up with Tocaro Blue
Havoc AI’s autonomous vessels equiped with Radar
If you thought you’d seen the end of defense tech start-ups teaming up, think again.
This morning, unmanned surface vessel (USV) company Havoc AI announced in an exclusive release to Tectonic that they’re teaming up with Tocaro Blue to integrate the company’s ProteusCore™ marine radar processing system onto Havoc’s vessels.
Paul Lwin, CEO of Havoc AI, told Tectonic that this will massively increase his fleet’s threat-sensing capabilities.
“ProteusCore™ enables our vessels to autonomously find, fix, track, and target surface vessels using onboard radar, without relying on AIS or persistent network connectivity,” Lwin said via email, “It makes our vessels smarter, more resilient, and more effective—especially when human supervision is limited or unavailable.”
At sea: Here’s the problem—oceans (especially, say, the Pacific) are really, really big. It can be hard to maintain comms with autonomous vessels out at sea, which can make them vulnerable to threats like enemy vessels or, even, torpedoes.
That’s where radar comes in. Radar systems send out electromagnetic pulses that bounce back when they hit an object – like, say, an adversary’s USV. However, it can be tricky to interpret radar data quickly. Enter: Tocaro Blue.
ProteusCore uses AI and machine learning to analyze radar sensor data and autonomously detect and track other vessels and maritime threats.
Even without connectivity, the software is able to share this threat data across an autonomous fleet. The USVs can then adapt to or, if necessary, target those adversarial vessels.
To boot, Tocaro Blue uses pretty cheap, off-the-shelf radar technology coupled with their advanced algorithms. That keeps integration costs pretty low.
Lwin told Tectonic that there was no capital exchanged to form the partnership. “This is a strategic technical integration driven by mission need…both teams are focused on delivering capability to warfighters at speed,” he wrote.
Speed up: Havoc AI went from launch to boats-in-the-water real quick. The company was founded in 2024 and had boats in the water and $11M in seed funding by the end of the year.
The company’s 14-foot Rampage USV was deployed as part of Project Convergence and Silent Swarm.
Earlier this year, Havoc unveiled their 38-foot, mid-sized Seahound vessel, which is currently in production.
On mission: These ultra-low-cost vessels are already in use across the DoD. In a recent test, Havoc says that they simultaneously controlled 25 vessels deployed around the world—from Europe, to the Atlantic, to the Pacific—from a single center in San Diego, with a bunch of DoD officials watching.
Integration of Tocaro Blue’s software is already underway on the Rampage and on the 42-foot KaiKoa ASV, a vessel built by R&D firm PacMar and made autonomous using Havoc’s software. Next up will be the Seahound and PacMar’s 100-foot vessel, with full integration expected by the end of the year.
Going forward, ProteusCore will be a built-in part of Havoc’s standard autonomy suite.
Radar Processing Enables Autonomous Control
"Our ProteusCore software transforms commercial off the shelf Radar into a military-grade perception sensor. We designed ProteusCore with unmanned surface vessel builders in mind, looking for affordable and scalable perception technology for high volume autonomous surface vessel production." John Minor, CEO Tocaro Blue. "Our partnership with Havoc AI allows us to deploy our technology where it can make a meaningful impact on the future of maritime operations for defense customers."