U.S. drone boat runs naval intercept demo in Japan

A Typhoon uncrewed surface vessel built by California-based Splash Industries demonstrated naval interception during a drone demonstration at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, on Oct. 21, 2026, as part of the Keen Sword 27 exercise between U.S. forces and the Japan Self-Defense Forces.

The demonstration put the small, fast drone boat through an intercept scenario on the water off Iwakuni, a joint U.S. Marine Corps and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force air station on the Seto Inland Sea coast in Yamaguchi Prefecture.

The Typhoon is an 11-foot (3.4-meter) jet-powered boat that Splash Industries has been developing for national security missions, including cargo delivery and maritime surveillance. The company says it can sustain speeds above 50 knots (93 km/h), and its CEO, Ivan Avanesov, has said the boat reached and held speeds of more than 70 knots (130 km/h) in testing, which makes it well suited to chasing down and intercepting other small craft.

The boat has had a busy year at major U.S. Navy exercises. During Rim of the Pacific 2026 off Hawaii in July, a Typhoon autonomously approached the moving amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2) and guided itself into the ship’s flooded well deck without human intervention, which Splash Industries described as the first fully autonomous underway resupply of a U.S. Navy warship. In another RIMPAC demonstration, a Typhoon navigated rough seas to meet up with a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier more than 160 km (100 miles) offshore.

Splash Industries has also been adding strike options to the platform. In August, the company introduced the Airstrike Pack, a mission module that lets operators launch one-way aerial drones from the boat with the press of a button through the company’s Splash C2 command-and-control software, and said the module had already been tested in a force-on-force exercise. The Inglewood, California, company came out of stealth in July with a $4.2 million funding round led by Ubiquity Ventures.

Keen Sword 27 runs from Oct. 19 to Oct. 29 and brings together about 45,000 Japanese and roughly 12,000 American personnel, along with close to 300 aircraft and ships, in what is the largest edition of the biennial exercise so far. Much of the training focuses on the defense of Japan’s southwestern islands, and the program covers air and missile defense, amphibious landings, logistics and maritime operations.

The Typhoon’s appearance at Iwakuni added a drone boat to an exercise that also features U.S. Marine Corps NMESIS anti-ship missile launchers and MADIS air defense systems deployed to Yonaguni Island, with the exercise continuing through Oct. 29.