Their UUV Had to Surface to Think
A defense contractor's UUV program had a problem. The vehicles collected acoustic data just fine. But to classify what they found, they had to surface and phone home. In contested waters, surfacing to check email is a bad plan.
Client
Defense Contractor (Autonomous Maritime Division)
Industry
Defense - Maritime Systems
Use Case
UUV Signal Processing & Autonomous Analytics
Products
Expanso
Timeline
14 months from contract to first sea trial
ROI
37% improvement in mission completion rate
The Solution
We put the analyst on the vehicle. Expanso runs signal classification models on the UUV's existing ARM compute board. 67ms to classify an acoustic signature. Vehicle decides what to do without asking anyone. When it finally surfaces, it sends a summary - not 47GB of raw recordings.
15-Watt Classification
Signal classification runs on the vehicle's ARM Cortex-A72 at 67ms per event. No GPU required. No extra power budget. The model fits in 340MB of RAM alongside mission control software.
Autonomous Decision Tree
Vehicle runs a behavior tree that responds to classified signals. Interesting contact? Investigate. Threat signature? Evade and log. Normal traffic? Continue mission. No surface required.
Compressed Mission Report
When the vehicle surfaces - by choice or schedule - it transmits a 12MB summary instead of 47GB raw data. Satellite costs dropped from $376K to $96 per mission.
The Results
First sea trial, the UUV completed a 73-hour mission without surfacing once. Classified 2,847 acoustic events, investigated 3 contacts of interest, and came home with a 12MB report. Previous gen would have surfaced 8 times and spent $3M on satellite.
Classification Time
Autonomous Duration
Mission Completion
Transmission Cost
Signal classification time: 67ms on ARM Cortex-A72
Power draw: 15W vs 47W for previous ML framework
Mission completion rate improved from 61% to 84%
Satellite costs per mission dropped from $376K to $96
First sea trial: 73 hours, 2,847 classifications, zero surfaces
IL4 compliance validated in 3 months - DoD ATO in hand
Model updates deploy when vehicle docks - no OTA required
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