Measuring Dissolved Carbon to Support Removal Process The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) will lead a $5.9 million, three-year project to develop an underwater, laser-optical sensor to measure dissolved carbon compounds in the ocean. Connected through optical fiber cables, these sensors will be towed by a Wave Glider, collecting and transmitting real-time data. The funding is part of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) SEA-CO2 program, a $36 million investment to advance carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) techniques and cut harmful greenhouse gas pollution. Monitoring dissolved carbon is a ..read more

The Wave Glider Ocean Plastics Demonstrator project has been selected for the 2022 Environmental Leadership Award by The Boeing Company. In the category Protection, Compliance & Stewardship, Liquid Robotics’ collaboration with Boeing, the Jupiter Research Foundation, and NOAA’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center was recognized for its efforts to help address a global environmental problem: microplastics in the ocean. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that at least 14 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean worldwide each year. Over time and with ..read more

At Liquid Robotics, we are committed to our customers’ success by continuously improving the Wave Glider for optimized missions and customized solutions. To enable the next generation of software standards and to build a forward-looking and robust framework, Liquid Robotics has initiated the implementation of open architecture standards for improved platform and shoreside processes. This month, we are excited to announce the release of our Data Service, the first phase of the multi-step Software Roadmap. With the launch of the new Data Service, customers have an additional option to access Wav ..read more

Liquid Robotics, a Boeing Company, has relocated its corporate headquarters and production to Herndon, Virginia, joining Boeing’s existing facility. As a wholly owned subsidiary of The Boeing Company, Liquid Robotics will greatly benefit from the move, leveraging Boeing’s administrative, engineering, and manufacturing capabilities for its Wave Glider production. “We are excited to welcome Liquid Robotics to Herndon. Our facility offers world-class standards in production and safety and will fully support Liquid Robotics’ goal to increase manufacturing efficiencies. Having a shared space will a ..read more

Ten years ago today, Liquid Robotics embarked on a world record-breaking journey to cross the Pacific Ocean with a fleet of Wave Gliders. The wave powered unmanned surface vehicles traveled from San Francisco Bay to the Hawaiian Islands and then continued on their route to Australia. While the Pacific Crossing (PacX) to Hawaiʻi already secured a world record for distance by an unmanned wave powered vehicle, the unprecedented voyage of 9,000 nautical miles to Australia set a Guinness Book World record for the longest distance ever traveled by an autonomous vehicle. “We are immensely proud of wh ..read more

Liquid Robotics channel partner BlueZone Group has been awarded an Australian Defence Innovation Hub grant to develop a sovereign anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability to support the Royal Australian Navy’s integrated undersea surveillance system. The award builds on the success of earlier exploratory work. Under the Phase 3 contract, BlueZone Group and its industry partners Sonartech Atlas and Acacia Systems will prototype an Australian-developed sonar and combat data processing system installed in a Wave Glider unmanned surface vehicle (USV). The Wave Glider was selected as the USV develop ..read more

Demonstrating its ongoing commitment to support, lead, and foster research and innovation in the country, The Research Council (TRC) of Oman has established a Wave Glider Hub at Innovation Park Muscat (IPM) – the first-of-its-kind in Oman and elsewhere in the region. Designed to serve as a center of excellence for Wave Glider operations, the facility is tooled with necessary equipment to support maintenance, training and piloting of Wave Glider fleets, both in Oman and within the region. The Wave Glider Hub is set to support a wide variety of missions for environmental and maritime services, r ..read more

Guest post by Francois Galgani, IFREMER Because of its energy independence, its long-duration persistence and its cost-effective operation, the Wave Glider platform is able to collect and transmit data over distances of thousands of miles across wide geographic areas and specific areas of interest and operation. Many applications have been described but to date, the use of video has not been tested for regular and long distance surveys. A first application of video camera to monitor surface/subsurface marine litter at sea was tested in 2013 (Galgani et al., 2013), using a a HD GoPro HERO2 Long ..read more

How can you measure seafloor motion with millimeter-scale accuracy through two miles of seawater? The satellite-based GNSS technique used on land doesn’t work in the ocean, so we turn to GNSS-Acoustics. When you combine GNSS and precision acoustics, made possible by advances in sensor technology, the result is incredibly accurate seafloor measurements—precise enough to track tectonic plate movement. GNSS-Acoustics have been used successfully to monitor seafloor motion from research vessels, but vessels are too expensive to be a practical long-term, real-time solution. Enter unmanned systems, w ..read more

Our recent announcement of the newest Wave Glider focused on the advancements to shoreside operations and in-water performance that enable customers to mobilize, deploy and operate fleets of vehicles more efficiently. Included in that announcement was the Rapid Stand and Crate System. Simply put, the Rapid Stand and Crate System is the most efficient way to mobilize, transport, and deploy Wave Gliders. By eliminating the need to disassemble and reassemble transported vehicles, the system significantly reduces the time and expertise required to mobilize a Wave Glider. The system consists of two ..read more