Ocius christens three new Bluebottle USVs

Sydney based SME Ocius Technology Pty Limited has christened the last three of five Bluebottle 6.8m Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV) manufactured under a $5.5 million Defence Innovation Hub contract awarded in June 2020.

The three new Bluebottles, Bluey, Brizo and Beacon, were launched by RADM Peter Quinn, Head of Navy Capability, Ms Michelle Moulos and Senator Holly Hughes, respectively. They join Beth and Bonnie which were christened in 2020. The five new Bluebottles are

The Bluebottle USV harvests solar, wind and wave energy to remain at sea for months at a time, making a forward speed of up to 5kt. It remains in touch with a shore station using on-board communications systems and deploys a range of above water and underwater sensors to detect and track targets, including submarines, sea mines, surface vessels and other USVs.

In July 2020 the Bluebottle design was approved by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) to operate autonomously as Domestic Commercial Vessels (DCV) within Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone. The Bluebottle fleet is now being deployed to WA and to Darwin for a range of platform and sensor trials.