Undersea Defence Technology conference

Undersea Defence Technology (UDT) is an annual international conference and exhibition dedicated to undersea warfare, naval technology, and maritime autonomous systems. It brings together naval officers, defence procurement officials, and industry from across NATO and partner nations. The conference rotates between European venues and is one of the primary industry forums for subsea capability announcements and procurement signals.

At the April 2026 UDT conference, BAE Systems described its Herne XLAUV as on track for Lloyd's Register certification and 2026 delivery to the Royal Navy. That certification update was the last public status report on Herne before BAE's platform was conspicuously absent from the AUKUS Pillar II Signature Project fact sheet published on 30 May 2026, which named only US-built systems.

UDT 2026 thus framed the comparison: British industry publicly on track for a sovereign XLAUV capability in the same year that AUKUS locked in a US-platform-dominated UUV programme. The conference sits alongside the Combined Naval Event (May 2026) as the two principal forums where the autonomous-maritime industry shaped the procurement narrative before the AUKUS signing.