Navy Taps Blue Water Autonomy for Uncrewed Deep-Ocean Survey Work

Blue Water Autonomy, a Boston-based technology and shipbuilding company, has been selected for a multiple-award contract with the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO) to deliver high-resolution ocean floor mapping using long-endurance uncrewed surface vessels.

The award is structured as a multi-year, multiple-award, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract with a $40 million ceiling. Blue Water Autonomy will compete for task orders alongside the other selected companies, with missions spanning the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean.

Endurance is the engineering pitch

Open-ocean survey work demands assets that can stay on station far from shore for extended periods — precisely the operating profile uncrewed surface vessels are designed around.

"Mapping the open ocean is exactly the kind of long, high-endurance work that [autonomous vessels] are built for," said Rylan Hamilton, CEO of Blue Water Autonomy.

The company's vessels fully integrate hardware, software, and AI into a single platform, an architecture aimed at sustained autonomous operation rather than retrofitted remote control.

The Liberty Class platform

Central to the company's offering is the Liberty Class Autonomous Ship, a 190-foot steel vessel with a range of over 10,000 nautical miles and more than 150 metric tons of payload capacity. Those are meaningful figures for survey missions, where sensor payloads and endurance drive the value of each deployment.

Notably, Blue Water Autonomy is not starting from a clean-sheet hull. The Liberty Class is built on Damen's Stan Patrol 6009 hull design, and the company says using a proven hull design reduces technical risk — freeing engineering effort to focus on the autonomy stack and internal systems rather than unproven naval architecture. It's a pragmatic call, and one manufacturing professionals will recognize: de-risk the platform, differentiate on the integration.

The company expects to complete the first vessel for the U.S. Navy in 2026.

A young company moving quickly

Blue Water Autonomy was founded in 2024, making the NAVOCEANO selection a rapid progression from startup to Navy contractor. The company raised $50 million in Series A funding last year, bringing its total funding to $64 million.

For the manufacturing and autonomy sectors, the signal here is clear: uncrewed surface vessels are moving from demonstration programs into contracted operational work, and the companies winning that work are pairing proven hulls with purpose-built autonomy.