Leading Intelligence in Persistent Maritime Domain Solutions

However, floating buoys that carry the sensors, data acquisitors and communication devices to facilitate real-time decision-making and enhanced monitoring require a reliable and secure power solution. Better power supplies would improve connectivity and facilitate large-scale, real-time data transfers for applications like hydrographic surveys, marine life monitoring, illegal unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, maritime domain awareness (MDA) and vessel tracking, among others.

Working across multiple industries to provide intelligent maritime solutions and services that enable safer and more productive ocean operations is Ocean Power Technologies (OPT).

Since its inception, OPT has developed core technologies that harness the ocean’s power to generate electrical energy. It designed its proprietary PowerBuoy wave energy converter (WEC) as a novel wave energy device capable of generating large quantities of power for the grid.

Now, OPT has improved upon this technology optimizing size to power intelligent maritime solutions and provide enhanced connectivity. This enables safer and more productive ocean operations for the defense and security, oil and gas, science and research, and offshore wind markets.

The company provides 24/7 full-scale data capabilities and real-time communications for the increasing electrical needs of offshore industries, scientific research, territorial security, and other applications without the need for human intervention.

A Product Evolution

Over the years, OPT has emerged as a pioneer in delivering products and solutions geared toward marine data, power, and services with an emphasis on sustainability, protection of ocean resources, and contributing to the blue economy. It shifted PowerBuoy’s focus to find more specific niches as offshore power systems, surveillance, and communication devices.

“Our sustainable power generation and data capabilities with low- and low-to-no-carbon solutions allow for smarter and faster actionable insights for ocean operations that are becoming increasingly digitized,” says Matthew Burdyny, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Ocean Power Technologies. “These solutions are ideally suited to enable customers to lower their costs and carbon emissions associated with offshore defense and security and ocean energy production while providing full persistent MDA above and below the waterline.”

Maritime surveillance, domain awareness, and shoreline border security are daunting challenges due to the vast areas that must be monitored, weather-related access limitations, and the significant manpower required. The PowerBuoy offshore power and data platform can support multiple sensors and communication equipment to enable an autonomous approach to monitoring and detection, providing real-time data processing and data transmission capabilities critical to actionable intelligence.

OPT provides maritime domain awareness through radar, automatic identification systems (AIS), HD thermal cameras, and passive acoustic sonar systems. This array of sensor systems tracks all types of vessels, from full submersibles to fishing and panga boats.

“For instance, if we hear something on a passive sonar array, even though nothing is caught on our cameras or the radar, that’s an automatic flag for us to focus and inspect below the water surface,” elaborates Burdyny.

OPT’s first fully commercial product was the PB3 PowerBuoy, which acts as an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) that constantly recharges itself by harvesting energy from the waves. It is ocean-deployed, moored, and floats over the point of use and supplies power continuously to onboard payloads or equipment located on the seabed while providing real-time data transfer and communication to remote shore facilities.

We create a geofence on the water surveillance system by combining leading edge sensors in a coherent system and providing intelligence to the decision points in real-time allowing our customers to focus on interdiction rather than detection and identification

Today, PowerBuoy-based solutions provide power and communications for a wide range of offshore applications. Its data communications abilities enable new technical solutions and enhance capability in remote offshore locations and offer real-time remote user control and equipment monitoring.

OPT’s highly reliable and proven technologies serve different fields of applications and give it a competitive edge over its peers.

“We create a geofence on the water surveillance system by combining leading edge sensors in a coherent system and providing intelligence to the decision points in real-time allowing our customers to focus on interdiction rather than detection and identification. Marrying the OPT autonomous surface vehicle that acts like the mobile node and the moored system as the stationary node offers information without gaps that bad actors can take advantage of,” says Burdyny. “Our buoys also hide in plain sight and look like nothing more than a navigation aid.”

Constantly Innovating with Technology and Collaboration

To remain technologically advanced, it seeks out partners that complement its core technology. In early 2021, OPT acquired 3Dent Technology, now Strategic Consulting, an offshore energy engineering and design services company with expertise in structural engineering, hydrodynamics, and naval architecture.

By the end of 2021, OPT had also acquired Marine Advanced Robotics, a developer and manufacturer of autonomous surface vehicles (ASV). The wholly-owned company offers three models of highly maneuverable and stable ASVs using Wave Adaptive Modular Vessel (WAM-V) technology–the ultra-portable 8-foot WAM-V 8, the WAM-V 16, and the more powerful WAM-V 22–along with marine robotics services. Now with the combination of businesses under the OPT fold this enables users to leverage the MDA PowerBuoys to geofence a region for detection and identification of threats while utilizing the WAM-V for further investigation and interrogation. The power generation capability of the PowerBuoy enables the WAM-V to remain in persistence, dock, and recharge.

OPT continues to lead the way in ocean-energy technology, with plans to expand the PowerBuoy platform by integrating patented technologies in hydrodynamics, electronics, energy storage, energy conversion, and computer control systems to produce reliable, clean, and environmentally beneficial electricity for long or short-term offshore applications

“As part of our expansion, we have been consistently onboarding top talent and enhancing the operational capacity of our business. We are also investing heavily in engineering to drive rapid innovation and optimize what is considered core IP. This will involve more acquisitions and partnerships along the way to expand our products, remain nimble, and move quickly. It is our passion that fuels our drive to innovate and put technology in the hands of our men and women on the front lines to help provide a voice to those that don’t have one in the fight against IUU fishing, human trafficking, drug smuggling, and other illicit activities.,” says Burdyny.