DEPLOYDatabase

Company

Ocius Technology

Ocius Technology is an Australian maritime robotics company developing autonomous unmanned surface vessels including the [Bluebottle](/models/bluebottle) USV.

Founded
1999
HQ
Sydney, Australia
Status
private (founder/government-grant funded)

Models

1

Overview

Ocius Technology is an Australian maritime robotics company developing autonomous unmanned surface vessels including the Bluebottle USV. The Bluebottle combines solar, wind, and wave power for round-the-clock maritime missions with endless endurance. Founded by Robert Dane, Ocius is formerly known as Solar Sailor.

Verified record

Verified deployments
None on file
Active incidents
None on file

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Key facts

Product

Bluebottle USV (solar, wind, wave powered, endless endurance)

Program

A$176M / 40-vessel / 5-year RAN program (Mar 2026; fleet 15->55); ceiling-vs-obligated undisclosed.

Founder

Robert Dane

CEO

Robert Dane

Formerly known

Solar Sailor

Financial stage

Growth (defense contractor, A$176M RAN program)

Data & sources

Press releases

1

Web sources

3

4 sources backing this record.View all →

Current platform

Bluebottle

Ocius Technology (Sydney, New South Wales; founder and chief executive Robert Dane, evolved from his earlier Solar Sailor venture and renamed Ocius in 2014) makes the Bluebottle, a wind-, solar-, and wave-powered persistent autonomous surface vessel, recorded in the maritime form factor. The Bluebottle harvests energy three ways, through a patented hard solar sail combining wind and solar, crystalline-silicon solar panels, and rudder-mounted wave oscillators for passive propulsion, giving it average missions of about 75 days and a longest deployment of 184 days. The registry records it at commercial maturity: a A$176 million, 40-vessel, five-year Royal Australian Navy program of record announced on March 11, 2026 expands the RAN fleet from 15 to 55 vessels with deliveries from early 2026, and Ocius has operated Bluebottles around the clock from HMAS Coonawarra in Darwin for the border-security Operation Resolute since July 1, 2024 with 15 vessels already delivered. Its editorial throughline is the persistent-presence-via-energy-harvesting hardware archetype, with theoretically indefinite endurance and vessels sold outright to the RAN and US primes, distinct from Saildrone's captive data-as-a-service and Saronic's US new-defense procurement. Several cap-flags and corrections apply: the A$176 million figure's ceiling-versus-obligated split is undisclosed in all sources including the primary government release, so it is recorded as a government-reported headline value; the US Navy relationship is indirect through the prime ThayerMahan, which bought two Bluebottles for A$2.4 million and ran the US Navy anti-submarine-warfare demonstrations rather than a direct US Navy procurement; a NOAA customer relationship could not be verified and is dropped; and Ocius's funding is not verifiable with no institutional round, while its founding year and hull length conflict across sources.

maritime_surfaceView model →

Ocius Technology on the deployment map

Where Ocius Technology's robots are verified operating. Explore the deployment map by place and type.

Relationships

Current leadership (1)

Founders (1)

Safety record

No incidents on record for Ocius Technology.

Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.

Full safety record: incidents, sourcing, and exposure data →

Recent coverage

Ocius Technology in third-party press

Peer companies