/ Hull
Printed, skinned, silenced
A fully 3D-printed hull with a carbon-fibre skin for strength at pressure, finished in a rubber coating that absorbs sound rather than reflecting it.
Project 01 · In development & water testing
Seaspray.
A 1.5-metre autonomous sea drone built to disappear into the North Atlantic for weeks at a time — and come back with the picture. Eighteen months in development.
1.5 m LOA
Multi-week endurance
Dynamic diving
Silent drive
Encrypted comms
The platform
Small hull. Long watch.
Seaspray runs pre-programmed missions with onboard planning: it works out where to go, what to avoid and where to remain stealthy, then reports in real time to a ground station or operational HQ. People set the mission; the boat does the hours at sea.
01 — Perception & autonomy
It sees the world in 3D, and thinks before it moves.
Seaspray's onboard image processing builds a live 3D model of the world around it — identifying objects with clarity, range and extent, the same camera-first approach proven in automotive autonomy. Below the waterline, sonar detects what cameras can't see.
- A.
Mission in, plan out
Operators pre-programme the mission. Onboard processing works out where to go, what to avoid and where to remain stealthy — no continuous control link required.
- B.
Real-time reporting
Contacts and status stream back to a ground station or operational HQ over encrypted 433 MHz radio and an encrypted cellular link, so the shore side always holds the picture.
- C.
Dynamic diving
The platform trims and dives dynamically to hold position, ride out weather and stay unobserved, surfacing to charge and communicate.
- D.
Fails soft, not hard
Two motors, redundant IMUs and independent battery packs mean a single failure degrades the mission rather than ending it.
02 — Engineering
Built to be quiet, tough and repeatable.
/ Drive
Silent by design
Twin low-kV brushless motors run slow and quiet, sized for endurance rather than speed — and either one can bring the boat home alone.
/ Power
Weeks, not hours
Two 300 Wh battery packs topped up by an onboard solar deck give multi-week endurance between any human touch.
/ Nav
Knows where it is
GNSS positioning backed by redundant inertial units keeps an accurate fix through dives, jamming and satellite outage.
/ Sense
Above and below
4K image capture and vision perception above the waterline; sonar object detection beneath it; water-temperature sampling throughout.
/ Comms
Encrypted, twice over
Two independent encrypted links — 433 MHz radio and cellular — so the report gets through even when one path doesn't.
03 — Specification
The numbers, as they stand.
Seaspray has been in development for eighteen months and is now in water testing. Figures below reflect the current test configuration and will evolve with it.
Length overall1.5 m
EnduranceMulti-week, solar-assisted
Propulsion2 × brushless motors, redundant
Power2 × 300 Wh + onboard solar
Perception4K vision → live 3D model · sonar
NavigationGNSS + redundant IMUs
CommsEncrypted 433 MHz + cellular
Hull3D-printed, carbon skin, acoustic coat
ControlPre-programmed, human-on-the-loop