Saildrone

Saildrone is a maritime defense company that builds autonomous systems to give decision-makers and warfighters the enduring advantage to outpace adversaries.

Saildrone designs, manufactures, and operates autonomous wind- and solar-powered unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) known as saildrones. These vessels carry science-grade and defense-grade sensor suites to collect high-resolution oceanographic, meteorological, maritime domain awareness, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data. Customers include research institutes, government agencies, and defense organizations. Saildrones operate in harsh environments like category 4 hurricanes and Antarctic waters for up to a year. The company is headquartered in Alameda, CA, and focuses on persistent, low-cost, real-time data collection rather than selling vessels.