Ocius announced the sale of two Bluebottle USVs to the USA for A$2.4 million and the signing of a Teaming Agreement with US defence prime contractor ThayerMahan to collaborate on the development of its Outpost System on Ocius’ Bluebottle USVs. Also Royal Australian Navy personnel officially accepted delivery of their sixth RAN Bluebottle, designated BB706.
At the end of April 2024 off San Diego, Ocius demonstrated two Bluebottle USVs with ThayerMahan. Bluebottle BONNIE operated in San Diego Harbour participating in Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) exercises and Bluebottle BETH operated 15nm off the coast carrying a ThayerMahan Outpost passive array system. The Outpost system on BETH’s keel winch was deployed to variable significant depths with on-board processing and communications live back to base. This was all done in a sustainable manner using renewable energy for five days achieving a successful results-driven demonstration.
As a result, ThayerMahan, is buying both Bluebottles for A$2.4 million and with Ocius contracted support will be putting them to work off Connecticut for marine mammal monitoring and demonstrating the capability to US customers.
Robert Dane, Ocius CEO, said, “Both companies share a mutual love of technology and the sea and have complementary proven products. Recently, in San Diego, engineers from both companies worked as a team to combine ThayerMahan’s TRL8 (-9) Outpost system with our TRL8 (-9) Bluebottle USVs. We thank the Australian Government, and its defence innovation programs and the RAN from the Chief of Navy down. We are especially grateful to DSTG and Royal Australian Navy Warfare Innovation Branch, now called Maritime Integrated Systems, for their visionary work over the last nine years testing and evaluating our capability. We have undertaken different Concepts of Operations (CONOPs) and surveillance payloads to make the Bluebottle USV a reliable and effective product.”
Mike Connor CEO of ThayerMahan said “Our collaboration with Ocius has been tremendous. Combining our proven Outpost acoustic sensing system with Bluebottle’s impressive manoeuvrability, functionality, and payload capacity enables us to maximise the performance of our scalable, autonomous surveillance systems. Among other features, the Bluebottle’s ability to harness wind, wave and solar energy and its integrated keel winch are game changers. Together, we will provide AUKUS nations with unprecedented maritime domain awareness, on and below the ocean’s surface, preserving their advantage in a changing and uncertain world.”
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