New Zealand’s Seasats reports it has had a very good month in terms of sales for its proprietary Lightfish unmanned surface vessel (USV). According to a press release, they managed to secure $24 million of actual funded orders in August/early September, including boats for the US Navy and Marine Corps.
These orders are for its USV and its robot-as-a-service (RaaS) products. These orders, the company reports, appear to “reflect growing demand for small, long-endurance USVs across a broad base of military users.”
The star of the show is Lightfish, a roughly 11-foot (3.4-meter) long surface, solar-powered drone boat that stays at sea for extended periods of time. Weighing in at around 360 pounds (163 kg), it is designed primarily for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions.
In this sense, it can be thought of as something of a mobile, autonomous ocean surveillance post. It can carry different sensors depending on the mission: normal cameras, infrared cameras, sonar, or other surveillance equipment.
A good month for Seasats
Because it’s solar-powered and designed for very long endurance, you can scatter a bunch of them over a large maritime area and have them keep watch without constantly sending crewed ships or aircraft out there.
Reference Raas is also interesting. Under such a contract, customers (like the Navy) will request Seasat to supply the boats, launch them, maintain them, operate the autonomous system, and presumably provide the sensor/data service.
About Seasats
Seasats closes maritime blind spots. Border protection, port security, tripwire operations, countering illegal trafficking and fishing, oceanographic research, hydrographic survey, and other missions depend on continuous awareness across key stretches of water. Seasats makes that possible through networked systems of unmanned surface vessels that operate persistently, maintain continuous data streams, and act when required.
Seasats has secured over $100 million in customer contracts and has USVs operating with the U.S. Navy, NOAA, and leading research institutions worldwide. The company is headquartered in San Diego and backed by groups including Shield Capital, L3Harris Technologies, and Konvoy Ventures.
