Industrial
Blue Water Autonomy, a Boston-based technology and shipbuilding company, has been selected for a multiple-award contract with the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO). The company will provide high-resolution ocean floor mapping using long-endurance uncrewed surface vessels, a mission that leverages the inherent strengths of autonomous systems.
Mapping the open ocean is exactly the kind of long, high-endurance work that autonomous vessels are built for, said Rylan Hamilton, CEO of Blue Water Autonomy. This selection puts our autonomy to work across the Indian and Pacific oceans, well beyond the range of a crewed survey ship, and it shows the technology we are building serves many different missions.
Mapping the open ocean is exactly the kind of long, high-endurance work that autonomous vessels are built for, said Rylan Hamilton, CEO of Blue Water Autonomy. This selection puts our autonomy to work across the Indian and Pacific oceans, well beyond the range of a crewed survey ship, and it shows the technology we are building serves many different missions.
The award is a multi-year, multiple-award, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract with a $40 million ceiling, which Blue Water Autonomy will compete for alongside other selected companies. Ocean surveys provide key data for the Navy, and deep open-ocean survey is among the most demanding work at sea, with value reaching well beyond a map of the seafloor. Surveys characterize the operating environment itself, including terrain and acoustics, and create a map of shifting conditions that shape how naval forces move and operate far from shore.
Taking on this surveying involves sending assets hundreds to thousands of nautical miles offshore for extended missions. Crewed survey ships can cost tens of thousands of dollars a day to operate. NAVOCEANO and the wider Navy have steadily expanded their use of uncrewed systems for these missions to lower cost, reduce risk to personnel, and cover more ocean with fewer assets. Blue Water Autonomy hopes to capitalize on this shift with its autonomous technology.
Founded in 2024, Blue Water Autonomy creates unmanned ships that can operate on the open ocean for m
Source: The Robot Report