U.S. Navy picks Blue Water Autonomy to use autonomous vessels for deep ocean surveys

Blue Water Autonomy’s Liberty Class is a 190-foot steel autonomous ship. | Source: Blue Water Autonomy

Blue Water Autonomy, a Boston-based technology and shipbuilding company, has been selected for a multiple-award contract with the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO). Blue Water Autonomy will provide high-resolution ocean floor mapping using long-endurance uncrewed surface vessels.

“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 the other selected companies.

Deep open-ocean survey is among the most demanding work at sea, and its value reaches well beyond a map of the seafloor, Blue Water Autonomy said. Surveys like the ones the company will perform characterize the operating environment itself such as the terrain, the acoustics. They also create a map of the 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 months a time. The company’s autonomous vessels fully integrates hardware, software, and AI . Last year, it raised $50 millions in Series A funding, bringings the company’s total funding to $64 million.

In February, the company unveiled its first vessel, the Liberty Class . This is a 190-foot steel autonomous ship with a range of over 10,000 nautical miles and over 150 metric tons of payload capacity. Blue Water Autonomy expects to complete the first vessel for the U.S. Navy this year under a program of record.

Blue Water Autonomy is building the Liberty Class on Damen’s Stan Patrol 6009 hull design. The company said using a proven design reduces technical risk, allowing Blue Water to focus engineering on re-architecting the vessel’s internal systems for autonomous operation. The company redesigned the ship from the inside out to make it fit for autonomous operations and months-long deployments.