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.
Evidence boundaryHistorical case-specific report. Figures describe the deployment documented at the time and are not current universal product guarantees.
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
/ Challenge
The Challenge
The existing UUV collected 47GB of acoustic data per mission. Then it surfaced, transmitted everything via satellite at $8/MB, and waited for shore analysts to tell it what to do. The whole cycle took 6 hours. In an operational scenario, that UUV would be debris.
Original workflow: collect data, surface, transmit, wait for analysis
Satellite transmission cost $8/MB - a full data dump was $376K
6-hour analysis cycle made tactical response impossible
15W power budget for compute - can't just add GPUs
IL4 compliance required for all onboard software
Existing ML frameworks drew 47W - vehicle couldn't make it home
/ Solution
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.
/ Results
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.
67ms
Classification Time
73 hrs
Autonomous Duration
37%
Mission Completion
$96
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
The program completed its customer-controlled approval process before operational use
Model updates deploy when vehicle docks - no OTA required
/ Explore Related Solutions
/ What's next
Running ML on constrained hardware?
If your edge devices have tight power and connectivity constraints, we can evaluate the processing pipeline on your target hardware.
/ Typical engagement
30 days
Free assessment
90 days
Optional pilot
Measured
Baseline vs. after
