Marine AI Ltd
"Smarter Ships, Safer Journeys"
Plymouth developer of GuardianAI autonomy, sensor-fusion and vision software behind the Mayflower ship, DARPA NOMARS Defiant and XV Excalibur XLUUV.
Marine AI Ltd is a maritime autonomy software company based at Turnchapel Wharf in Plymouth, England. It also has an office in Exeter and a representative in New Zealand. The company was incorporated in November 2017 as Ship AI Ltd and adopted its current name in January 2019. It presents itself as launched in 2019 by MSubs, a builder of autonomous and crewed submersibles, and it continues to work closely with MSubs. Founder Brett Phaneuf is chief executive of Submergence Group and MSubs. The technical team is led by CTO Don Scott, who has a 35-year career in marine autonomy, Chief AI Officer Franck Barillaud, Director of Engineering Oliver Thompson and Director of Development Ben Wickenden. Marine AI does not build its own vessels. It supplies the software that lets surface and underwater craft from other builders navigate autonomously or under remote supervision, for both defence and commercial customers.
Its product family is the GuardianAI suite. GuardianAI Autonomy is a modular vessel-control system that Marine AI says can deliver IMO Level 4+ autonomy, organized into three layers: Sense builds a trusted contact map from multiple sensors; Decide handles tactical route planning, COLREG-compliant obstacle avoidance and mission management, with configurable constraints such as speed limits for survey payloads or fuel optimization; and Act takes direct control of the vessel's actuators or supports a remote operator through suggested paths. GuardianAI Sense fuses radar, AIS, camera and sonar data into a dynamic hazard map, assigns a confidence value to each contact, predicts tracks and re-weights sensors by health and conditions, for example down-weighting camera contacts in poor visibility. GuardianAI Vision detects and classifies boats, navigation marks and unknown obstacles in conventional and infrared video, while GuardianAI Lookout steers pan-tilt-zoom cameras. GuardianAI Lite is a cut-down stack for remotely operated USVs of about 4.5 m operating under the UK MCA's MGN 705 exemptions, providing collision avoidance, mission management and remote control. All modules are run through Guardian Inspect, a web-based mission control interface.
Marine AI's best-known reference is the Mayflower Autonomous Ship. In June 2022, together with MSubs, IBM and ProMare, it attempted the first autonomous Atlantic crossing. In the United States, the company worked with Serco on DARPA's NOMARS program, which produced the 55 m USX-1 Defiant, a medium USV designed for long uncrewed deployments. Its work for the Royal Navy includes Project CETUS. There it integrates its executive autonomy stack, including low-level control of the electrical systems, on XV Excalibur, a 12 m long, 2.2 m diameter extra-large UUV with a range of more than 1,000 miles, three-dimensional obstacle avoidance and seabed payload deployment. Other Royal Navy work covers the earlier S201 experimental XLAUV and the Navy X trials ship XV Patrick Blackett.
Commercial and academic projects include the Oceanus12 series of 12 m over-the-horizon USVs developed with ZeroUSV, and adoption of GuardianAI Vision by Unmanned Survey Solutions. The company also has a partnership with Water Witch on autonomous litter-collection workboats, and Memorial University of Newfoundland uses its tactical planning software on a research USV. Marine AI runs an in-house test boat, AYSE, works with Videosoft Global on low-bandwidth video streaming for remote operation, and has appointed Engaged Engineers as a distributor for yacht and commercial-ship applications. Organizations shown on its site as GuardianAI users or partners include DARPA, the US Office of Naval Research, Serco, Navy X, the UK Hydrographic Office, IBM, NVIDIA, Nauticus Robotics, MARTAC, SeaRobotics, Blue Water Autonomy and the National Physical Laboratory. The company targets defence, hydrographic and scientific survey, offshore energy, aquaculture, critical infrastructure security, ferries, leisure yachts and commercial shipping.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
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Contact Marine AI Ltd
WEBSITE
https://marineai.co.ukPHONE
+44 1752 938271HEADQUARTERS
United Kingdom
Company Facts
Founded
2017
Primary Role
Software/Algorithm
Company Size
-
Primary Region
Europe
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
-
Funding Total
-
Keywords
- Marine AI Ltd
- GuardianAI
- Guardian Autonomy
- Guardian Sense
- Guardian Vision
- Guardian Lite
- COLREGs collision avoidance
- sensor fusion
- Mayflower Autonomous Ship
- XV Excalibur
- NOMARS
- Software/Algorithm
- Control & Software
- Perception & Vision
- Navigation & Positioning
- Defense & Security
- Oil
- Gas & Energy
- Education & Research
- Logistics & Supply Chain
