Royal Australian Navy to Acquire Five Bluebottle USVs

12/05/2022

At a Christening ceremony following the Annual General Meeting of Ocius held on Thursday 24 November 2022, RADM Pete Quinn Head of Navy Capability made the announcement.

He said “Over five years as HNC it has been fantastic being involved with Ocius and seeing Australian technology at the forefront. Systems like Ocius Bluebottles are really important to our strategy. We have vast areas we need to patrol, and we have to and will be investing in uncrewed platforms that will be out there persistently conducting surveillance.”

Ocius CEO, Robert Dane said “This contract makes Ocius a Defence Prime; not a big one… but from little things big things grow” and “to be a long-lasting Defence Prime we need two things – innovative products and people”.

He went on “Any innovative product will one day not be innovative – it will become the benchmark so Ocius must have continuous innovation of our Bluebottles, iDrogue, Loyal Shipmate and other products and create a culture where our people, University of NSW academics and subcontractors feel the excitement of innovation.”

Robert also noted that in the last 15 months, five Bluebottles under a Defence Innovation Hub contract had completed nearly 23,000 nautical miles at sea which was equivalent to around the world at the equator.

221128 OCIUS PRESS RELEASE - Bluebottle Christening