ThayerMahan, an autonomous maritime surveillance and offshore solutions provider, and Australian autonomous uncrewed vessel developer Ocius Technology have signed an agreement to combine technologies to develop long-duration USV with acoustic sensor arrays to strengthen AUKUS Pillar II objectives.
Under the agreement, ThayerMahan will install its outpost passive acoustic maritime surveillance system aboard Ocius’s Bluebottle unmanned surface vessel (USV).
This collaboration will generate uncrewed acoustic sensing systems that can be deployed to create distributed undersea surveillance networks in support of Pillar 2 of the AUKUS agreement.
These systems will enable delivery of cost-effective, wide-area sensor capacity wherever needed, according to the companies.
The collaboration leverages ThayerMahan’s expertise in deploying and operating sophisticated low-power acoustic sensors and advanced, AI-enabled acoustic processing with Ocius’ expertise in providing rugged, long-dwell autonomous vehicles that harvest wind, solar, and wave energy to drive a hull derived from Australia’s world-class sailboat racing designs.
ThayerMahan has already taken delivery of its first two Bluebottle vehicles at its headquarters in Groton, CT.
The companies already conducted the four-day demonstration of the Outpost-Bluebottle combination in California in April 2024. The Bluebottle USV was deployed 10 miles offshore with a deep-towed passive acoustic array and an onboard digital signal processor. Live data, streamed onshore, was used to detect and classify undersea, surface and airborne contacts in the approaches to San Diego in near-real time.
“Our collaboration with Ocius helps us to maximize the performance of our scalable surveillance systems. Together, we will help AUKUS nations know what is in the undersea domain – preserving their advantage in a changing and uncertain world,” said Mike Connor, Chairman and CEO of ThayerMahan.