DST Group is a national leader in safeguarding Australia by delivering valued scientific advice and innovative solutions for Defence and national security. OCIUS Technology Limited was selected for the Capability and Technology Demonstrator Program (CTD) in 2015 to develop an Anti-Submarine Warfare Unmanned Surface Vessel (ASW-USV). The A$3M contract provided extensive validation of our strategy to draw on proprietary technology for the development of long-range, autonomous surveillance and sensing platforms. Specifically, it allowed us to develop a high-performance OCIUS Bluebottle Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) coupled with an integrated Thales Australia thin-line towed array sonar system. This was demonstrated to NAVY on Aug 10, 2017, and exceeded all contract performance measures. OCIUS has been invited to apply for further Technology Demonstrator funding under the Defence Innovation Hub program.

Stebercraft International is a leader in Australian boat manufacturing and industrial composite technology since 1947. Steber manufactures high-quality boats for fishing, charter, patrol, sea rescue, medical support, surveillance and general boating use. All Steber boats are individually designed and built to suit their purpose, with a quality of manufacture that ensures a long service life and the capability to put to sea when many other vessels need to return to port. Steber's core business of composite component manufacture is all undertaken in their climate controlled factory ensuring all laminating is carried out within humidity and temperature parameters allowing 24-hour production when required. Stebercraft is an Australian owned and operated family company with a firm commitment to provide a high-quality product with excellent customer service.

Thales develops, manufactures and exports world leading underwater sonar sensors and towed arrays in Australia. Since 2013 Thales has had an ongoing contribution to the OCIUS project combining its advanced underwater sensors with OCIUS autonomous Bluebottle USV to demonstrate the capability of autonomous maritime surveillance. Thales is the maritime lead for the Trusted Autonomous Systems Defence Co-operative Research Centre.

One2three naval architects designed our second prototype Bruce’s hull, keel, deck and hatches. They are well known in the sailing world as the naval architects who have multiple times re-designed “Wild Oats“ the record-breaking maxi and 8 times winner of line honours in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. They will review Bruce’s seakeeping ability in a range of conditions to provide several improvements in design, tracking, helm, payload bay & performance for the next prototypes.

UNSW Australia (The University of New South Wales) is one of Australia’s leading research and teaching universities. OCIUS have a contract for research into intelligent networks and machine learning with the University of New South Wales. UNSW provide OCIUS with a Research & Development facility in UNSW’s Randwick Campus. Additionally, OCIUS hires multiple computer science and mechatronics engineers from UNSW, and students from UNSW under intern programs.

Bruce Heggie and Graham ‘Butch’ Johnson are well known on the NSW South Coast as suppliers of innovative machine and fibreglass products. They have supplied fibreglass and mechanical engineering since the successful winning of the International boat race in 1997. They have provided equipment for all solar sailor ferries, scale models and prototypes including our Bluebottles' steering mechanisms, patented rudder flipper appendages and patented solarsails & mechanisms.

David Clark is a registered Australian and NZ Patent Attorney with 25 years’ experience in mechanical engineering, mining, medical, software, digital signal processing, electronic gaming, plastics, environmental, agricultural machinery and more. He has been Solar Sailor’s and OCIUS' patent attourney for over 15 years. Prior to founding Clark IP, David successfully managed the patent practices at a major first tier law firm and has a strong business acumen so he provides OCIUS with not only technically accurate work but also commercially meaningful and relevant advice.

Being a keen sailor he brings a unique mix of practical experience and technical expertise to OCIUS. We enjoy working collaboratively with David to translate our R&D into meaningful and quality patents, registered designs and trademarks.

During the Second World War Australian service men and women played a vital role in every theatre of the conflict, leading to the successful Allied outcome in 1945. The Spitfire Association, founded by many of these men and women, remains strong to this day. The spirit of camaraderie, service and enjoyment of life is a hallmark of the Association, bound together by a love of this iconic aeroplane the Spitfire.

The Spitfire Association has a 'living memorial' being the Spitfire Memorial Defence Fund which is invested and the interest of which each year goes towards a competitive Scholarship and/or Fellowship for Australians doing 'research to benefit the Defence of Australia'. In 2016, OCIUS was honoured to be awarded scholarships for several UNSW students to go towards the design and build of hardware for Bluebottle prototype Bruce. In 2017, Robert Dane was honoured to be awarded the Spitfire Fellowship for the development of the unique 'reel in the keel' winch for Bluebottles, enabling a small USV to carry any number of sensors in a seaworthy way and deploy and retrieve that sensor to depths of 1 - 140m as desired.

Ocius Technology Ltd (formerly Solar Sailor Holdings Ltd) is an Australian public unlisted company with Research and Development facilities at the University of NSW.

In 1997, Solar Sailor won the Advanced Technology Boat Race in Canberra, beating the next solar boat by 5 laps of 6km (30km) using a new patented 'solar sail' - a simple device which harnesses both solar and wind energy in a seaworthy manner.

Since then, the company has proven a solid track record of conceiving, funding, and delivering difficult, innovative, high-tech, award-winning projects on time and on budget.

The company has built multiple 'solarsailor' prototypes and six high-tech, award winning, hybrid electric, commercial passenger ferries to international classification requirements, which together have carried tens of thousands of passengers. Today, four solarsailor hybrid electric ferries operated by the Hong Kong Jockey Club operate 364 days of year, 14 hours a day, from Sai Kung to Kau Sai Chau half the fuel ferries.

Following an enquiry from the USA in 2007 for a 'platform that could go to sea forever', the company began research into the development of unmanned solar/wind/wave powered ocean vessels or autonomous unmanned surface vessels. Initially, a 20-foot manned engineering development model (EDM) proved the 'speed of advance' in all conditions, adequate power, payload and persistence for a sustainable platform go to sea for months.

In 2014, Solar Sailor changed its name to OCIUS (Latin for 'fleet') to reflect an expansion of its patented technologies and a pivot in direction for the company.

OCIUS built multiple scale models for tank and lake testing, culminating in the building of the first 10' prototype called 'Nemo' (Latin for 'no one' ie unmanned) which provided significant proof of concept of a solar, wind and wave powered USV carrying a significant payload.

Based on Nemo's development, in 2015, OCIUS was awarded a Capability Technology Demonstrator (CTD) from Defence Science and Technology Group. This proved a significant contract and OCIUS with our partner Thales developed an 18' prototype 'Bruce' for Antisubmarine Warfare (ASW), which was demonstrated to the NAVY in August 2017.

In Sept 2018, Ocius was awarded its second defence contract under the Defence Innovation Hub to build an intelligent “Command and Control (C2) network” of intelligent persistent unmanned surface vessels.

In November 2019 'Bruce' participated Autonomous Warrior War games in Jervis Bay. Due to extreme weather, 'Bruce' was often the only USV operating. Ocius' intelligent C2 system was used to control another Navy WAMV catamaran and 2 DSTG UUVs.

From May - June 2019, Ocius completed 6 week endurance and intelligent networking trials in a designated AMSA approved 'box' off the NSW Coast, successfully completing the DIH contract 3 months ahead of schedule.

Ocius is continuing its work with Thales, testing a new Thales thin line array deployed from the Bluebottle keel winch to significant and varying depths, which is being demonstrated at Pacific 2019 Expo at Darling Harbour 8-10 October.

Solar Sailor built 6 commercial solar sailor vessels providing valuable experience to OCIUS on the commercial maritime and technical applications of its technology as well as developing an extensive network of first-class suppliers and partners.

• “SolarSailor” (Australia). This vessel was completed in one year and won the Australian Design Award of the Year in 2001.
• Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust Project (Hong Kong). In July 2008, with oil at $140/ barrel, the Hong Kong Jockey Club ordered the construction of four commuter ferries to operate a service to transport players, staff and supplies from the mainland at Sai Kung to the island of Kau Sai Chau where the HKJC has three 18 hole golf courses. The ferries alternate two routes of five and seven mile round trips with slow sectors at each end in a 20-minute cycle. Solar Sailor modelling predicted substantial savings in fuel consumption compared to the previous ‘standard’ diesel ferry service, as well as reductions in emissions.  The boats in operation have exceeded this since in independent tests since delivery and are still running 14 hours a day, seven days a week using half the fuel of the previous ferries.
• Shanghai World Expo (China). After demonstration of the Sydney ferry to Suntech, a Wuxi-based solar panel company, in 2009 OCIUS was awarded a contract to design, build and install a 12 -metre high SolarSail with software integration, on a 250 pax VIP river cruise boat vessel,  ‘Suntech Guoshung’ for the World Expo in Shanghai.

Unmanned Surface Vessels
Following an enquiry from the USA in 2007 for a ‘self-sustaining platform at sea’, OCIUS began research into the development of unmanned solar/wind/wave and ballasted powered ocean vessels or autonomous unmanned surface vessels. Initially, a 20 foot manned engineering development model (EDM) proved the 'speed of advance' in all conditions, adequate power, payload and persistence for a sustainable platform able to go to sea for months.

In 2014, Solar Sailor changed its name to OCIUS (Latin for 'fleet') to reflect an expansion of its patented technologies including the solar sail. With Ulladulla Fibreglass and Engineering, OCIUS built multiple scale models for tank and lake testing, culminating in the building of the first 10' prototype called 'Nemo' (Latin for 'no one' ie unmanned) which provided significant proof of concept of a solar, wind and wave powered USV carrying a significant payload.

Based on Nemo's development, in 2015 OCIUS was awarded a $3M Capability Technology Demonstrator (CTD) from Defence Science and Technology Group. This proved a significant contract and OCIUS with our partners developed an 18' prototype 'Bruce' for Antisubmarine Warfare (ASW), which demonstrated to NAVY in August 2017.