Saildrone

Saildrone was named to TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies for 2024. The list includes leaders, disrupters, innovators, and titans like Anthropic, Nvidia, Amazon, and Intel, among others! “Powered mostly by wind and solar energy, the USVs—which do, in fact, look like small robotic sailboats—are packed with sensors gathering atmospheric and ocean data for everything from measuring dangerous weather events to saving the whales (from harm by ships and construction), and can stay unattended for up to a year...'We do a bit of everything, and you can often do many things at the same time,' said CEO Richard Jenkins." See the full list here: https://lnkd.in/gxyqXAS9 #TIME100Companies

The Wall Street Journal did a wonderful job building this interactive look at all the technologies NOAA: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration uses to improve hurricane prediction and better understand how they intensify—from 30k feet above the ocean surface to 3k feet below. Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/gUngGTP5 Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL)

Inside Hurricane Helene 🌀 Saildrone and NOAA Research worked together this week to direct two Saildrone Explorer USVs into Hurricane Helene to gather data at the air-sea interface during the storm. On Thursday, September 26, at 6:16pm ET, SD-1083 captured this video and measured 9.06 meter (29.7 ft) significant wave height and 71.82 kt wind gusts. Visit hurricanes.gov for detailed forecasts, watches, and warnings, and follow the guidance of local officials. Saildrones are uncrewed surface vehicles powered by wind and solar energy and remotely piloted. They are capable of making multiple concurrent measurements of the environment, including wind speed, wave height, temperature, pressure, and salinity. This mission is a collaboration between NOAA: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) and Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) Lab, and Saildrone. 📷: Video of stormy water captured from saildrone SD-1083’s onboard camera at the eyewall of Hurricane Helene

Saildrone is heading to DEFSEC Atlantic next week. Come by our booth to see how autonomous solutions can reduce the cost of operations and expand maritime domain awareness! 🌊 💪

What we're reading this week 📙 In Category 5, author Porter Fox turns climate science into a gripping thriller. Throughout the book, Fox shadows explorers, oceanographers, sailors, and weather forecasters to understand the power of the ocean and its effect on global weather patterns. He came to Saildrone to interview CEO Richard Jenkins and VP Ocean Mapping Brian Connon about how Saildrone USVs can help shed light on all that we don't know about the ocean. "We don't know what's down there. And the only way to know is to go and look." Order a copy from Amazon or find it at your local bookseller: https://lnkd.in/gyZnYmYq

Saildrone CEO and Founder Richard Jenkins is speaking on Monday, September 23 at 10:00AM at the Unmanned Maritime Systems Technology USV Focus Day. His talk, "Saildrone Lessons Learned from USV Deployments at Scale," will focus on our findings from persistent global deployments and recommendations for the future of #USV evolution and integration.

Saildrone is proud to support Lakebed 2030, a grassroots initiative to gather critical lake floor data about the Great Lakes—the world's largest freshwater system, spanning two countries, eight US states and two Canadian provinces, and home to more than 40 million people. Mapping the Great Lakes is critical to ensuring: 🚰 Drinking water for major regional cities 🎣 Access for commercial fishermen 🏊♀️ Recreational use of the unique coastline and lakes Great Lakes Observing System #Lakebed2030 #GreatLakes https://lnkd.in/gUjP73yt

It was an honor to host the House Armed Services Committee at Saildrone HQ yesterday. In the morning, I testified to the committee in HASC’s Silicon Valley field hearing where we discussed industry views on DOD acquisition pathways and innovation efforts. My recommendation: fill the funding void between experimentation and operational programs, aka the valley of death. DOD currently spends more than $50 billion on R&D initiatives, but almost nothing on long endurance testing or integration into deployed operations. Successful products that prove value in the experimentation realm mostly die on the vine waiting for inclusion in the POM process that takes several years or might never happen. Program officers need to be bold and embrace new technology to modernize the DOD and keep up with the current pace of battlefield and technology innovation. Congress should consider a bridge fund that would guarantee near-term funding for transition to operational scale with the requirement that the technology is budgeted for in the next POM cycle. Funding the transition period will carry innovative technology across the valley of death into programmatic reality at the speed of relevancy. https://lnkd.in/gh7XhQJJ

Saildrone was proud to welcome members of the House Armed Services Committee and invited guests for a tour of our Alameda, CA, manufacturing facility. The visit followed a hearing during which tech CEOs discussed how the DOD can enable rapid adoption of new capabilities, provide a pathway for successful prototypes to scale, and allow the services the flexibility to take advantage of emerging technologies. “The DOD spends over $50 Billion on research and development but almost nothing on integration into operations. It’s like a private company designing a new product, but with no money or effort spent on the go-to-market strategy,” said Saildrone CEO Richard Jenkins. Jenkins asked the committee to consider creating a dedicated “bridge fund” within a service’s budget to fund the immediate roll-out of new technologies that are already proven effective through existing programs, have adequate demand signals, and are being included in the service’s future budget submissions. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/ges6jXVp House Armed Services Committee Democrats House Armed Services Committee Republicans

Saildrone is attending Great Lakes Observing System's Lakebed 2030 conference this week. Make sure to catch Richard "Kitch" Kennedy and Brian Connon at our joint talk with Norbit to learn more about our platform's #bathymetric capabilities. 🗺 #Lakebed2030 #hydrospatial