Unmanned Ship Company with $14 Million in Financing, Will Show Up in the Ocean

As the saying goes, the sky is wider than the sea. But compared to drones in the sky, unmanned ships in the ocean have a broader application prospect.

Saildrone, Alameda, Calif., was previously funded from the family fund of Googleâ€™s former CEO Schmidt, but recently received a $14 million Series A round of financing. This company, founded in 2012, is powered by an unmanned fleet of automated vehicles. Marine real-time data collection program. This round of investment is dominated by Social Capital, Capricorn Investment Group and Lux â€‹â€‹Capital. This is the first time the company has accepted external venture capital. The newly injected funds will be used to expand the scale of unmanned fleets, increase data processing capacity, and plan business operations.

The wind powered unmanned boat developed by Saildrone can collect global ocean data. This technology has a wide range of applications, such as patrolling coastal borders, tracking the signs of global warming, ocean acidification, early detection of oil leaks, and following marine organisms.

Compared with the traditional vessel scheme, unmanned ships can automatically collect data in vast sea areas around the clock at a lower cost. Saildrone sails only at wind speeds of 3-5 knots on the sea.

Each unmanned ship can provide a fixed or cruise mode according to the research mission. There are a variety of customized sensor satellites on board to send the detected data to land and distribute it through API. The company is also constantly striving to integrate new detection capabilities into the Unmanned. Moreover, customers can operate or visualize real-time data from corporate clients using computers and mobile phones/tablets, allowing Saildrone to reset tasks and measure in real time with higher resolution. Basically, it can control all the actual operations, starting from the dock, returning to the sea, and autonomous navigation on busy waterways.

Saildrone's founder and CEO Richard Jenkins said: "We are working hard to work with like-minded investors, mission-oriented people, and experienced professionals to connect with innovative hardware and big data processing."

Jenkins is also a cool brother. He has been sailing on the South coast of England since he was a child. He always wanted to design some fantastic devices for sailing. He spent a decade studying carbon-powered air-driven vehicles that broke the speed record of wind cars at a speed of 126.1 mph on the dry riverbed of Lake Ivanpa in Nevada in 2009. Immediately, British engineers used their technology on unmanned Saildrone ships, and their special tail-controlled free-rotating wings enabled it to travel long distances, and were constructed and designed in such a way that even the worst weather conditions would not cause overturning.

Before putting the measuring equipment on board, in 2013, the unmanned ship began a â€œconceptual proof tripâ€ from San Francisco to Hawaii. According to the company, the ship has a total of 60,000 nautical miles in the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

Jenkins said: â€œThe data collected by Saildrone will not only provide a better understanding of the ocean, but it will enable us to further study the processes of weather, fish resources, ocean acidification and climate change that affect all humankind. Understand the speed of these processes and their changes. The economy and survival are related."

The application of marine unmanned ships has broad prospects, and what is broader than the sea is human wisdom and exploration of the world, making this world a better determination.

Via techseen & venturebeat & bbc