Blue Water Autonomy Inc.

🤖 ⛵ What is the true shape of the maritime autonomy stack? Navigation is sexy - so many pursue it - but it’s just one layer. 🤔 When we started Blue Water, I was averse to following other companies’ focus on navigation autonomy. Doing so would have been undifferentiated. So we went after the least sexy layer, the darkest dungeon at the bottom of the maritime autonomy stack: engine room autonomy. But a ship is more too than just an engine room and a bridge. There are many, many layers in a ship’s autonomy stack. What I’ve shared below is a new framework to think about the map of maritime autonomy. This is a simple 6-layer visual to orient collaborative discussions around answering a simple question: “Where in the stack are you?” 🗺️ C2 and Supervisory  ⚔️ Mission Autonomy  🧭 Navigation Autonomy  🎥 Perception & Sensor Fusion 🚣 Autopilot & Dynamic Positioning 🤖 Engineering Autonomy & MCS The bottom 4 layers live almost entirely on the vessel, while the top 2 must live both on the vessel and in the cloud. These 6 do not include - but rely every second on - a few other inputs into their architecture. 1️⃣ Collaborative autonomy 2️⃣ Payload autonomy 3️⃣ Automatic Target Recognition For now, I've just shared how we're thinking about the stack - not mapping specific companies onto it. Down the road, we may be able to share a "market map" of which companies solve which problems within this framework. Stay tuned! *Credit to much sharper brains like Josh M. Joseph Hughes for developing this framework so that a colorblind guy like me can at least tweet about it. #maritime #autonomy #maritimeautonomy #autonomousships #usv #uuv #umv #uxv

The Naval Oceanographic Office "NAVO" has awarded Blue Water a spot on a $40M IDIQ for deep-ocean, high-endurance survey. While orgs like NAVO, NOAA, and big Navy have long studied the depths of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, only recently have they turned to USVs to conduct oceanographic surveys. Deep-ocean survey fits Blue Water USV strengths well: high-endurance, open oceans, long, dull missions you don't need humans for. Blue Water is proud to support NAVO's mission against Chinese and Russian undersea forces in INDOPACOM. Congrats to our team and partners who made this happen - see you on the water! 👉 Link to Press Release: https://lnkd.in/gV8Z_JsF

Check out this article in Forbes featuring our very own Austin Gray!

We’re honored to work alongside the team at GV (Google Ventures). This video offers just a snapshot of the culture we’ve built at Blue Water. Every day, we’re testing, learning, and innovating as we work toward our mission of delivering the nation’s most reliable USVs.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... A surf foiler, caught on camera by our team during autonomous vessel testing off the coast of Rhode Island this week. Most testing for autonomous ships, including traditional Navy tests, focuses on detecting other ships. But out on the water, a vessel needs to detect, track, and safely navigate around everything it encounters, from wildlife to small craft to, apparently, surf foilers, with cameras, radar, infrared, and other sensors working together to build that picture. What's the most unexpected thing you've seen on the water?

Ships aren't just what we build. They're what we love. For most of us, the water came first, long before it was a career. That's still true today. Our teammates race in IOD Class championships, sail offshore from Virginia to Maine, teach others to sail, and compete in local regattas across Massachusetts. Turns out that's pretty good preparation for building the future fleet.

Our co-founder Austin Gray presented this year’s Sea Services Award alongside the Secretary of the Navy, Chief of Naval Operations, Commandant of the Marines Corps, and Commandant of the Coast Guard. Each year this award goes to a member of Congress who shows deep commitment to helping the sea services work with Congress. We are proud to work with these leaders, from both branches of government, to drive naval innovation forward and build the future fleet.

As they say, "No bad weather, only bad gear." Never truer than when you're out on the water running COLREGS tests all day. Wicked rain one day, sunshine the next. Sensors and testing didn't skip a beat a this week. Rain or shine, Blue Water is on the water; testing, learning, iterating. That's how you earn "sea-tested."

𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆 𝟮𝟱𝟬𝘁𝗵 𝗕𝗶𝗿𝘁𝗵𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝗔𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮! As tall ships sail into New York Harbor this week to celebrate America's Semiquincentennial, we're reflecting on a partnership that runs deep. Since 1977, more than 150 vessels built to our designs have been constructed at US shipyards, including the Sentinel Class and Protector Class patrol vessels for the U.S. Coast Guard. And we're not standing still. Our LST 100 design was recently selected by Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) for the Navy's Landing Ship Medium programme, with up to 35 vessels to be built at yards across the US. Together with Blue Water Autonomy Inc., we're also developing the Liberty Class at Conrad Shipyard in Louisiana, a 60-metre autonomous vessel based on our proven Axe Bow hull, for the US Navy. Liberty is a name with deep roots in American maritime history. On this 250th anniversary, we're proud to keep writing that story together. #Damen #4thOfJuly #America250