Latest news with #BlueWater
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Uncrewed warships are simple answers to big US Navy problems, says a defense tech company that's building them
The US Navy faces shipbuilding and fleet size issues as it readies for a potential war with China. A defense tech company making autonomous vessels believes these ships can solve the Navy's issues. Captainless warships could help supplement the traditional fleet. The US Navy faces a range of challenges, from shipbuilding gaps to overall fleet size, as it increasingly looks across the Pacific with concern at China's growing maritime might. Blue Water Autonomy, a relatively new defense technology company building uncrewed warships, believes that these vessels are the answer to the Navy's troubles and could give the sea service a much-needed boost in future conflicts for a lower cost. "There is a gap in the US Navy's overall capabilities," Austin Gray, Blue Water's co-founder and chief strategy officer, told Business Insider. "Human crewed ships would never be able to offer a 20 to 30 million dollar platform that can go out on the open ocean and do a bunch of different stuff." Blue Water, founded in 2024 by former Navy officers and an engineer, announced $14 million in seed funding earlier in April. This Boston-based startup is building a fully autonomous warship that can be mass-produced and operate alongside crewed vessels in the future. The Navy, which plans to build a battle force of 381 crewed warships and 134 uncrewed surface and undersea vessels, already fields various drone vessels, some designed for surveillance and reconnaissance missions and others as combat platforms. Gray, a former Navy intelligence officer, said that many of these vessels cannot travel thousands of miles and carry large payloads and are better off protecting key choke points, like the Strait of Hormuz or ports, rather than being sent on endurance missions. As US military leaders prepare for a potential war against China, they are paying close attention to America's naval force, as a conflict between the two adversaries would likely involve substantial maritime combat. Amid a push to supplement the traditional fleet with drones, the vast openness of the Western Pacific means it's essential for the Navy to have platforms that can travel long distances across the open ocean, a blue-water fleet. "How do we start something outside Chinese missile range, like 2,000 miles back, go into missile range — operate, conduct a mission — and then get back out?" Gray said. This is where Blue Water hopes to make a splash. First, the ship must be large enough to hold enough fuel to travel thousands of miles and carry an engine or two, bringing the vessel's length to roughly 100 feet. Gray said a ship this size is better off as autonomous because squeezing things like supportive and defensive systems on a small, crewed vessel "would be a disaster." "It'd be uncomfortable for the crew," he said, and that doesn't even factor in all the added systems that can make a warship's design more complex. "So, it's just much better to keep a vessel of that size unmanned since the tech is there." Blue Water believes a fleet of autonomous vessels can effectively solve a major hindrance in the Navy's preparation for a potential war with war: the need to build a larger naval force without adding strain to America's already struggling shipbuilding industry. China already has a larger naval force than the US, and its shipyards are rapidly building new surface combatants. By contrast, America's shipbuilding industry has deteriorated so much that President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month to revive it. Adm. Samuel Paparo, the head of US Indo-Pacific Command, told lawmakers recently that China is building around three warships for every one that America makes. He previously said uncrewed systems could help fill the gap for what the Navy lacks in crewed vessels. Gray said that autonomous vessels could be produced without adding any additional strain to the US shipyards that are already under pressure and busy building complex warships that often take years to make. Blue Water says it can design and build a prototype autonomous warship in just 18 months, making dozens a year at smaller but fully equipped shipyards across the US. The company has already discussed partnerships with several such facilities. "Manned ships are complicated, exquisite, and extensive, and they cost billions of dollars," Gray said. "Unmanned ships are much simpler form factors. We can produce 50 per year in medium-sized yards." Blue Water has a test vessel in the water at an undisclosed location in New England. The company said it is evaluating the hardware, software, and payloads for uncrewed ships, and it has three different designs in the works. Survivability is a key consideration in design. The ongoing Houthi attacks against key Red Sea shipping lanes raise questions about how autonomous warships survive in a time of anti-ship missiles and maritime strike drones. Gray said Blue Water wants to put weapons on its uncrewed ships because electronic warfare capabilities won't be enough to defend the vessel from enemy drone attacks — adversaries will learn and adapt. He said that a kinetic defensive system is necessary for future conflicts; it could be either guns or surface-to-air missiles. Ukraine is already showing other militaries how weapons systems can be added to drone boats. Kyiv has armed uncrewed surface vessels with missile launchers, machine guns, and small drones and has used these platforms to wreak havoc on Russia's Black Sea Fleet. Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
28-04-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Uncrewed warships are simple answers to big US Navy problems, says a defense tech company that's building them
The US Navy faces a range of challenges, from shipbuilding gaps to overall fleet size, as it increasingly looks across the Pacific with concern at China's growing maritime might. Blue Water Autonomy, a relatively new defense technology company building uncrewed warships, believes that these vessels are the answer to the Navy's troubles and could give the sea service a much-needed boost in future conflicts for a lower cost. "There is a gap in the US Navy's overall capabilities," Austin Gray, Blue Water's co-founder and chief strategy officer, told Business Insider. "Human crewed ships would never be able to offer a 20 to 30 million dollar platform that can go out on the open ocean and do a bunch of different stuff." Blue Water, founded in 2024 by former Navy officers and an engineer, announced $14 million in seed funding earlier in April. This Boston-based startup is building a fully autonomous warship that can be mass-produced and operate alongside crewed vessels in the future. The Navy, which plans to build a battle force of 381 crewed warships and 134 uncrewed surface and undersea vessels, already fields various drone vessels, some designed for surveillance and reconnaissance missions and others as combat platforms. Gray, a former Navy intelligence officer, said that many of these vessels cannot travel thousands of miles and carry large payloads and are better off protecting key choke points, like the Strait of Hormuz or ports, rather than being sent on endurance missions. As US military leaders prepare for a potential war against China, they are paying close attention to America's naval force, as a conflict between the two adversaries would likely involve substantial maritime combat. Amid a push to supplement the traditional fleet with drones, the vast openness of the Western Pacific means it's essential for the Navy to have platforms that can travel long distances across the open ocean, a blue-water fleet. "How do we start something outside Chinese missile range, like 2,000 miles back, go into missile range — operate, conduct a mission — and then get back out?" Gray said. This is where Blue Water hopes to make a splash. First, the ship must be large enough to hold enough fuel to travel thousands of miles and carry an engine or two, bringing the vessel's length to roughly 100 feet. Gray said a ship this size is better off as autonomous because squeezing things like supportive and defensive systems on a small, crewed vessel "would be a disaster." "It'd be uncomfortable for the crew," he said, and that doesn't even factor in all the added systems that can make a warship's design more complex. "So, it's just much better to keep a vessel of that size unmanned since the tech is there." Blue Water believes a fleet of autonomous vessels can effectively solve a major hindrance in the Navy's preparation for a potential war with war: the need to build a larger naval force without adding strain to America's already struggling shipbuilding industry. China already has a larger naval force than the US, and its shipyards are rapidly building new surface combatants. By contrast, America's shipbuilding industry has deteriorated so much that President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month to revive it. Adm. Samuel Paparo, the head of US Indo-Pacific Command, told lawmakers recently that China is building around three warships for every one that America makes. He previously said uncrewed systems could help fill the gap for what the Navy lacks in crewed vessels. Gray said that autonomous vessels could be produced without adding any additional strain to the US shipyards that are already under pressure and busy building complex warships that often take years to make. Blue Water says it can design and build a prototype autonomous warship in just 18 months, making dozens a year at smaller but fully equipped shipyards across the US. The company has already discussed partnerships with several such facilities. "Manned ships are complicated, exquisite, and extensive, and they cost billions of dollars," Gray said. "Unmanned ships are much simpler form factors. We can produce 50 per year in medium-sized yards." Blue Water has a test vessel in the water at an undisclosed location in New England. The company said it is evaluating the hardware, software, and payloads for uncrewed ships, and it has three different designs in the works. Survivability is a key consideration in design. The ongoing Houthi attacks against key Red Sea shipping lanes raise questions about how autonomous warships survive in a time of anti-ship missiles and maritime strike drones. Gray said Blue Water wants to put weapons on its uncrewed ships because electronic warfare capabilities won't be enough to defend the vessel from enemy drone attacks — adversaries will learn and adapt. He said that a kinetic defensive system is necessary for future conflicts; it could be either guns or surface-to-air missiles. Ukraine is already showing other militaries how weapons systems can be added to drone boats. Kyiv has armed uncrewed surface vessels with missile launchers, machine guns, and small drones and has used these platforms to wreak havoc on Russia's Black Sea Fleet.
Boston Globe
11-04-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Navy veterans' new startup is building captainless ships
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up A Saildrone on display outside a conference hosted by Palantir. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg Advertisement Also this week, weapons startup Anduril Industries Inc. unveiled a torpedo-like autonomous drone called Copperhead, with the tagline: 'Whoever commands the sea commands the world.' Building ships has become an increasingly urgent national priority. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order seeking to revive the industry in the US. The president will also dispatch Elon Musk's efficiency squad to investigate how the US Navy fell so far behind in turning out vessels. In January, Ambassador Katherine Tai said that the US builds fewer than five ships a year, while China constructs more than 1,700. Advertisement Blue Water is taking the country's slump in shipbuilding seriously. Chief Executive Officer Rylan Hamilton compared the company's mission to the Liberty ships the US made during World War II. Blue Water's vessel is designed for mass production, he said, with construction taking months rather than years. 'We'll need to deliver these at scale,' Hamilton said. 'The Navy needs to make hundreds of these.' Rising global tensions with China and Russia have fueled a larger rekindling of Silicon Valley's interest in defense technology. In the US, the defense sector is led by companies like SpaceX and Palantir Technologies Inc., which have commanded big government contracts after years trying to break into the insular world of US defense and military sales. Now, SpaceX is the world's largest startup, and Palantir's stock has climbed about 1,000 percent in the last two years. Private investors have taken note: Venture capital firms have plowed more money into US defense tech startups since 2021 than in the entire previous decade. 'We love this stuff,' said Seth Winterroth, a partner at Eclipse Ventures, which backed Blue Water, citing the recent upswell of industrial and defense companies. 'It's music to our ears to see a resurgence of this nationally.' There are a wide variety of nautical drones currently in development, ranging from small swimming swarms to Blue Water's 100-foot vessel. Most versions of the technology rely on AI, and many are equipped to carry military supplies while navigating through contested waters without GPS or communications. At Saildrone, for example, dozens of solar- and wind-powered drones that look like model sailboats are now operating in the Caribbean to deter illegal immigration and drug smuggling. Advertisement Another company, Vatn Systems, is building small AI-powered underwater vehicles designed to move in swarms of hundreds at a time. Founded in 2023, the company emerged from stealth last year with backing form the CIA venture unit IQT, and currently operates about a dozen of its 5-foot-long, 6-inch-around drones, which can carry supplies 1,000 miles without a GPS connection. It plans to deliver dozens more vehicles by the end of the year, and ultimately produce thousands. At Anduril, autonomous Copperhead drones will sit inside larger uncrewed underwater vessels that perform tasks like reconnaissance, mapping and carrying munitions. The startup last summer said it would be capable of producing 200 of its Dive-LD vehicles annually at a new facility in Rhode Island. Hamilton, a US Navy veteran, started Blue Water after co-founding robotic startup 6 River Systems, and previously worked at Inc. The startup is co-founded by Austin Gray, also a Navy veteran, and Scott Miller, an investor and former vice president of engineering at iRobot Corp. Hamilton described Blue Water's vessel as 'multi-mission,' working in areas with contested logistics to carry supplies, conduct surveillance or transport munitions payloads. During the next six to 12 months, Blue Water will continue demonstrating its systems' capabilities while determining whether to build its own shipyard or to partner with one of dozens of underused existing ones currently making ferries, tugboats and other vessels. An open question for companies like Blue Water is whether there will ultimately be a large enough market for their wares. Major US military contracts are famously difficult to get for new companies. Meanwhile, the Navy, which has long sought to increase its autonomous fleet, sliced its own research and development spending by 4.8 percent this fiscal year, with just $172 million going to unmanned surface vehicles and $192 million to unmanned underwater vehicles. Advertisement The technical challenges are also significant. Saltwater, extreme temperatures and lightning storms are the norm in open water passage — and often regular ships must make repairs as vessels are underway. Ensuring all those systems — from fuel pumps to sensors — operate seamlessly without humans will be a high bar. 'There is no room for error,' Hamilton said. 'The last thing the Navy needs is a dead ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.' The next step for the company will be building a prototype and attempting a voyage. 'For the Navy, seeing is believing,' he said.
Bloomberg
11-04-2025
- Automotive
- Bloomberg
Navy Veterans' New Startup Is Building Captainless Ships
Blue Water Autonomy, a startup that's less than a year old, is preparing to build a hulking, 100-foot ship. Co-founded by Navy veterans and former tech executives, the company has designed the vessel to travel thousands of miles for months at a time over the open ocean — without a captain or crew. Boston-based Blue Water has about 10 employees and $14 million in new funding. Its goal of building an autonomous ship that can carry 100 tons — about 50 cars — represents the outsized seafaring ambition of a group of startups working to release thousands of uncrewed vessels into and under the water.
