A Florida Company 3D-Printed an Entire Drone Boat With Robot Arms

Robot arms build a boat hull layer by layer

Florida-based Haddy has produced a full drone boat using large-format robotic 3D printing, showing how additive manufacturing is moving into maritime defense hardware. The vessel, called the TF-179, was built with industrial robotic arms that deposit material layer by layer instead of relying on molds or machined parts.

The company operates from a 30,000-square-foot facility in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. Eight large-format additive manufacturing systems from Dutch robotics company CEAD fill the space. Seven of the machines run on rails, extending their reach for especially large structures.

Haddy did not reveal who commissioned the TF-179 or what mission it is designed for. But the company's recent work points toward a growing market for small, expendable unmanned maritime systems. Demand for drone boats is rising across the US defense sector, and traditional boatbuilding cycles are too slow for the pace of modern requirements.

The same platform built a 12-meter unmanned surface vehicle hull in 10 days, according to Haddy. That is up to nine times faster than conventional hull production. The company claims costs drop by 50 percent to 65 percent compared with traditional boatbuilding methods.

As demand grows for specialized maritime platforms, manufacturing methods must evolve alongside them. The ability to rapidly produce, evaluate, and refine complex systems is becoming an increasingly important advantage, Haddy said in a LinkedIn post.

Founded in 2022, the company started with custom furniture and architectural molds. It has since shifted toward defense manufacturing, using CEAD's robotic systems to print drone hulls and full-scale boat structures. The transition mirrors a broader trend in defense procurement: move from inventory stockpiles to on-demand digital production, and from centralized factories to distributed manufacturing nodes.

The TF-179 represents the latest step in that direction. A drone boat printed near the point of need, with designs that can be updated without restarting a tooling cycle, is a different logistics model than the Navy has traditionally used. Whether that model scales beyond prototypes remains the question Haddy is now trying to answer with paying customers.