Bedrock Ocean

Bedrock Ocean Exploration operates autonomous underwater vehicles and a cloud data platform for mapping, monitoring and interpreting the seafloor. The company describes its approach as vertically integrated: it builds and runs its own custom AUVs, operates them with its own crews, and delivers the resulting data through its own software, which it says gives it complete control of the collection process and lets it tailor surveys to a customer's needs. The vehicles carry a multibeam echosounder, side-scan sonar, magnetometer and sub-bottom profiler, and the company states that the high resolution geophysical data they produce meets IHO Special Order standards, supported by a tightly integrated INS and DVL navigation architecture. Onboard edge computing performs QA/QC and pre-processing during acquisition, so survey quality can be validated and key insights shared with stakeholders without recovering the vehicle, with quality-control imagery passed to shore over Starlink. Two named software products support the work: Trident, a cloud-native command and control platform for fleet monitoring, coordination and over-the-horizon remote operation that lets teams oversee surveys from onshore, and Mosaic, the cloud data infrastructure and mission planning environment where raw survey data is processed into geospatial intelligence and distributed to clients and partners. The workflow is presented in four stages: plan in Mosaic, operate with the AUV fleet, validate data onboard in real time, then upload and share through the cloud. Operationally the company emphasises flexibility. Launch and recovery systems are purpose-built so vehicles can deploy from any locally available vessel without specialised gear; the entire AUV fits in two cases and can be transported by air, so mobilisation is measured in days. The vehicles are fully electric and powered by lithium-ion batteries, run at constant low altitude above the seafloor at two to three knots, and use smaller, less powerful sonars, which the company links to reduced permitting time, exemption from ITAs and PSOs, no ITAR restrictions and minimal acoustic impact in marine protected areas. Because the vehicles work below the surface they are largely unaffected by weather above it. Services are grouped for energy and infrastructure, marine research and maritime security, covering reconnaissance and site investigation, pre-construction surveys, export and inter-array cable surveys, operations and maintenance, pipeline inspections and decommissioning; maritime archaeology, environmental surveying, seabed mobility and coastal resilience; and mine countermeasures, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, port and critical infrastructure monitoring, rapid environmental assessment and search and rescue operations. The customers described include offshore wind, oil and gas and emerging renewables developers needing site characterisation and installation planning, port and submarine telecommunications operators tracking seabed change, security and defense organisations building baseline seabed awareness, and research institutions expanding ocean mapping and testing new sensors. Access to Mosaic is included with survey services.