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Australian autonomous uncrewed vessel developer Ocius Technology has produced a larger and improved Bluebottle uncrewed surface vessel.
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The new, larger uncrewed surface vessel, designated as “BETH 2.0” in-house, was shown to Defence Connect by Ocius chief executive officer Robert Dane earlier this month.
The fiberglass yacht-shaped uncrewed vessels are fully autonomous and powered by solar, wind, and wave motion. Bluebottles have previously been purchased by the Australian Defence Force and deployed for surveillance and reconnaissance missions using radar and high-definition camera tracking.
The 6 per cent larger mould can produce a 30 per cent better sailing ability (righting moment) and carry an additional payload increase of 300 kilograms while still being able to be launched from an ordinary boat ramp and fit in a shipping container, according to Dane.
“The magic of scaling the boat to go a little bit bigger is that obviously, it provides a lot more volume,” he said.
It’s understood that for the boatbuilder, engineering and production teams, BETH 2.0 boats will be easier to build and “fit out 0148. They will use the same rudder/flipper, winch and internal mechatronics and power systems and sit on the same size trailer, fit into a standard shipping container, be towed by a standard SUV and launch and recover from a council boat ramp. The first BETH 2.0 boat out of the new mould is BB708 and is located at the Randwick facility before beginning sea trials in August.
The Beth 2.0 extra volume design will likely feature at the Australian Defence Force’s Exercise Autonomous Warrior testing event held in October later this year, according to Dane.
“So, all these extra-large underwater unmanned vessels (being announced for international defence) are sort of synergistic with what we’re doing. If they’re under the water and they need to be able to communicate and they need a gateway to communicate, we can be that gateway of communications,” he said.
“So, if you’ve got 100 Bluebottles across the top of Australia, then it’s like a cell network for things under the water. We can be doing stuff like Border Force, Fisheries, we can be all these other things on the surface, but we can also be doing other stuff.”
Earlier this month, it was announced that international maritime design and technical consultancy BMT had teamed up with Ocius under a new maritime data collection and management collaboration.
The partnership is aimed at deploying a fleet of 1,000 autonomous vessels globally within the next 10 years, with BMT and Ocius able to provide a persistent and networked system of remote sensors.
The teaming agreement between BMT and Ocius aims to develop and demonstrate the effectiveness of the Bluebottle uncrewed surface vessel for providing data as a service.
The companies will focus on co-developing a commercial data collection and management model, initially targeting environmental monitoring for offshore wind development projects.
The Bluebottle USV is expected to be ideally suited for these projects, reducing the need for crewed data collection and benefiting from the sustained and persistent operations that a Bluebottle can deliver.
