Bay Area drone technology provides seagoing security across oceans: Here's how it works

ALAMEDA, Calif. (KGO) -- A Bay Area technology being tested off the coast of Northern Europe has goals that include patrolling and protecting shipping lanes that have been the site of suspected sabotage.

We checked in on its progress.

Outside a sprawling assembly space in Alameda, an autonomous, ocean-going drone is getting its sail -- the key component that will help drive it through even the roughest seas, nearly anywhere in the world. Founder Richard Jenkins gave us a closer look at a vessel known as the Saildrone.

"The aerodynamic tail controls the angle, the wing wheels of the boat -- they're to sail in any direction relative to the wind," he said.

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Over the past decade, various models have been used to do everything from mapping the ocean to monitoring hurricanes to tracking great white sharks off the California coast. All controlled with a combination of sophisticated mapping software and GPS, and without a human crew.

"The vehicle is fully autonomous. We set it, kind of a routing, a waypoint, basically give it an area in which it can operate and then it autonomously decides where to go and how to get there. We've got 20 different sensors per vehicle. There's ranges from radars to cameras, optical, infrared, acoustics, RF. And we have an onboard ML, AI running on GPU compute," Jenkins said.

In essence, it's eyes and ears on the ocean 24/7.

Demand for the technology is growing. The Armed Forces of Denmark are now testing the Saildrone in the Baltic Sea. Tensions are rising in the area, with several undersea communication cables cut in recent incidents being blamed, by some, on Russia.

Saildrone President John Mustin is a retired vice admiral. He believes the technology is becoming an essential tool to monitor evolving threats at sea.

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"What we provide, our eyes and ears in places where ships can't stay or ships are, aren't present. So, when you talk about things like critical undersea infrastructure, or frankly, the ability to monitor what's on or under the ocean, the world is awakened to the fact now that autonomous vessels can provide that is that crewed vessels simply can't, you know, and we do it," Mustin said.

Depending on the model, the company says it's able to build and outfit a Saildrone in anywhere from several weeks to a little over a month at a fraction of the cost of a typical naval vessel. While the company is still supporting marine researchers and agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it believes ocean going security could be the next demand on the horizon.

"So we're entering a time when there's just numerous maritime threats, nefarious activity happening in oceans -- from illegal fishing, over-fishing, smuggling narcotics, weapons and people -- you know, it's a really, really tough environment to monitor. And so, drones really specialize at being everywhere. Persistent presence -- eyes and ears above and below the surface," Jenkins said.

Company officials say they typically have roughly 40 to 70 vessels active globally at any given time and expect that number to expand significantly in the next few years.