"We’re operating under this environment with persistent surveillance, ships, comms, everything’s exposed to attack. Everybody can see everything everywhere." — Craig Anders, SVP of Growth at AEVEX.
Craig Anders on autonomy, degraded comms, and the pace of combat
Craig Anders frames the current threat environment as one in which navigation and communications are actively disrupted: "GPS is a mess, comms are a mess, everything’s being jammed." That assessment drives the central argument of the interview — autonomy must function when traditional tools fail. Anders says the response is less about novel airframes than software and autonomy: "Over time, airplanes aren’t going to grow extra wings or weird new kinds of propellers. This becomes largely an autonomy and a software fight."
He ties that technical shift to acquisition realities. If research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) cannot "move at the pace of combat," Anders warns, deployed systems will rapidly grow ineffective. The remedy, in his view, is shorter engineering cycles, closer operator‑engineer ties, and production flexibility so updates move quickly from field feedback into repeatable builds.
AEVEX Maritime Systems and the LYNX (formerly GARC)
AEVEX's recent integration of BlackSea Technologies into its Maritime Systems division is presented as a leap in maritime capability and scale. The vessel once called the Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC) has been renamed LYNX and is a U.S. Navy Program of Record, Anders said. AEVEX reports delivering 350 of those vessels and more than 25,000 operational hours in them; current uses include mine sweeping and countermeasures "in the straits right now."
The company also highlights other sea‑based concepts: NightTrain, described as a semi‑submersible, low‑visibility container transport with a 2,700 nautical mile range; and a sea‑based petroleum distribution tanker that holds 185,000 gallons of fuel and can be "sunk down to the sea floor and cache petroleum in place for contingency operations."
Audit-ready is a season. It shouldn't be.
Evidence in spreadsheets, controls drifting between audits, frameworks multiplying on flat headcount. Nubivance runs continuous compliance on Rapid7 Cyber GRC - SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, PCI, CMMC.
End the scrambleCompassX, common autonomy architecture, and one‑way attack in multi‑domain operations
AEVEX markets a modular autonomy stack called CompassX, a family of navigation and autonomy capabilities tailored to platforms and missions. Anders argues common autonomy architectures and compatible interfaces allow disparate platforms — one‑way attack boats, ISR boats, high‑flying ISR assets, and subsea systems — to "share information and coordinate more effectively" and produce a coherent picture across air, surface, and subsea domains.
He is explicit about combining roles: "You have one‑way attack that gets tied together by the boats on the water and the planes in the sky." Complementary missions include ISR, EW/EA, mine sweeping and neutralization, critical infrastructure protection, and long‑range logistics. Affordability and resilience are recurring themes: if adversaries mass inexpensive threats "at volume, at scale," layered, affordable unmanned systems that operate together are the defensive and offensive answer Anders proposes.
Operational data, short engineering cycles, and production at scale
AEVEX positions autonomy not merely as in‑platform control but as a data problem. Anders notes that "every platform the military owns, operates or uses generates data, and that data, a lot of times, largely goes unused." Pulling those data streams into "common operating pictures" and feedback loops is central to improving targeting, communications, and sustainment.
To make data‑driven iterations practical, Anders emphasizes the need for production and sustainment models that accept rapid change: "The production process has to keep pace as well, so we can move those improvements into repeatable builds and deliver them at the volume customers need." That links back to his earlier point that without short stroke engineering and close operator‑engineer connections, fielded systems will lag the changing battlefield.
What this means for engineers, procurement leaders, and the warfighter
- Engineers: Expect autonomy and software to be the primary battleground; modular stacks like CompassX and interoperable interfaces will be priorities for integration and rapid update cycles.
- Procurement leaders: Affordability, production repeatability, and sustainment logistics (storage, forward support, force structure) are core buying metrics — not just platform performance in isolation.
- The warfighter: Multi‑domain combinations of ISR, one‑way attack, and maritime systems promise longer on‑station coverage and reduced crew exposure, but their effectiveness depends on resilient navigation, communications, and fast fielded upgrades.
AEVEX’s pitch is straightforward and pragmatic: combine affordable, modular autonomy with rapid engineering cycles and data feedback to keep unmanned systems useful in degraded, contested environments. The company points to existing fleets — 350 LYNX vessels and 25,000 hours of operations — and fielded concepts like NightTrain and the sea‑floor fuel cache as tests of that approach. The open, practical question Anders leaves: can RDT&E and production truly shorten to "the pace of combat" so those systems remain effective as conditions change?
