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Red Cat Holdings, Inc. , a U.S. based provider of advanced all domain drone and robotic solutions for defense and national security, announced that its Blue Ops maritime division has established a strategic partnership with Florida Atlantic University (FAU) that will expand Blue Ops’ maritime defense operations to FAU’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Fort Pierce, Florida.
The partnership gives Blue Ops access to FAU Harbor Branch’s secure, 144-acre deep-water facility, including direct ocean access, waterfront infrastructure, specialized equipment and marine engineering and research expertise. The environment will allow Blue Ops to develop, integrate, test, and demonstrate uncrewed maritime systems under real-world conditions, accelerating the feedback between engineering, on-water evaluation and continued platform development.
The expansion comes as Blue Ops builds the U.S. infrastructure, technology and talent needed to support a resurgence in American maritime innovation and meet growing demand for autonomous systems. Harbor Branch adds a real-world maritime development and testing environment to an established Blue Ops footprint that includes its headquarters in West Palm Beach, Florida, and its 155,000-square-foot manufacturing operation in Valdosta, Georgia. Together, these capabilities support Blue Ops’ ability to develop, test, demonstrate, manufacture and scale autonomous maritime systems for U.S. and allied defense customers.
“Blue Ops has an opportunity to lead a new era of U.S. maritime innovation by combining our shipbuilding heritage with the best technologies being developed today in autonomy, AI, communications and advanced manufacturing,” said Barry Hinckley, president of Blue Ops. “Harbor Branch gives our team an environment where we can put systems on the water, integrate new capabilities and test them under the real-world conditions they were built for. Combined with our headquarters in West Palm Beach and growing manufacturing capacity in Valdosta, we are building the capabilities needed to move faster from innovation to operational systems in the hands of the warfighter.”
Blue Ops develops and manufactures a growing family of mission-adaptable USVs designed for U.S. and allied defense missions. Its growing family of USVs is built around Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA) principles, allowing payloads, sensors, communications, autonomy and mission systems to be integrated based on evolving operational requirements. The platform is designed to support missions including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; force protection; harbor and coastal security; contested logistics; and other payload-adaptable operations.
“Harbor Branch was built for the kind of real-world research, testing and collaboration this partnership will enable,” said Jason Hallstrom, Ph.D., interim executive director of FAU Harbor Branch. “Working with Blue Ops gives our researchers, engineers and students the opportunity to contribute to the development of autonomous maritime technologies with important national defense applications, while giving Blue Ops access to the expertise, facilities and maritime environment needed to advance these systems.”
