Technology Innovator Awards 2018

38 Corporate Vision / Technology Innovator Awards 2018 , Best Autonomous Undersea Vehicle - 2018 Riptide Autonomous Solutions provides a new, highly flexible, open source autonomous undersea vehicle that provides users a state-of-the-art, lowcost development solution ideally suited for developers of autonomy and behaviors, power systems, subsea sensors, and new payloads.We caught upwith the firm’s President, Jeff Smith, to find outmore about this dynamic company and its innovative solution. Riptide is an innovative 20-person early stage growth technology company that is rapidly expanding as its product sales scale significantly. Initially, the firm’s orders were largely US Government driven, but with the release of its MkII Micro-UUV Riptide is now selling and distributing vehicles internationally for the commercial, defense, and research markets. Jeff explores how the firm and its solutions are driving change in the undersea technology space. “Since inception, Riptide’s mission has been to be a dominant force in the UUV market. We intend to be the first UUV company to deliver 1000 vehicles. To achieve this, we had to create a highly flexible architecture that was able to satisfy a wide variety of applications with many different payloads, all at a highly affordable price point. “This is vital for our clients, as the undersea domain is extremely challenging, with severely limited communications and crushing pressures. When vehicle solutions cost several $M, users limit their risk by reducing use of the tool, getting little utility from the systems. By significantly lowering the cost of these systems, Riptide has reduced the barrier to entry while lowering the operating risks, enabling users to do more with the vehicles and expand the market faster and further. Whilst UUVs historically cost 100s of $K to several $M, and run for mere hours, Riptide vehicles cost 10s of $K, can have a range of 1000 nmi and run for days to weeks.” Overall, this drive towards change and commitment to providing clients with higher- quality, more cost-effective solutions will remain Riptide’s ongoing focus, as Jeff highlights in his concluding comments. “Going forward, at Riptide we are planning a number a major announcements and demonstrations this calendar year, demonstrating major objectives we have set for our vehicles to go deeper, farther, and faster than the previous industry standard. We also have demonstrations planned for exciting new vehicle payloads and running swarms of undersea vehicles collaboratively, so that we can continue to work towards our mission and make a real difference in this competitive market.” TI180005