Liquid Robotics

Lore & Background

The Wave Glider was originally invented to record the singing of humpback whales and transmit the songs back to shore. In 2003, Joe Rizzi, Chairman of the Jupiter Research Foundation, set out to design a system that could hold its position at sea without anchoring and operate 24/7 without harming the environment or whales. After experimenting, he enlisted the Hine family to help develop an unmoored, station-keeping data buoy. Roger Hine, a mechanical engineer and robotics expert from Stanford University, spent a year experimenting with different designs and energy sources, inventing the Wave Glider in 2005. In January 2007, Roger Hine and Joe Rizzi co-founded Liquid Robotics.

Endurance testing began in January 2009 when a Wave Glider completed a nine-day circumnavigation of Hawaii's Big Island. Later that year, a pair of Wave Gliders traveled from Hawai’i to San Diego, an 82-day trip covering more than 2,500 miles. Since then, Wave Gliders have traveled over 1.4 million nautical miles over more than 32,000 vehicle-days at sea. In September 2014, Liquid Robotics entered a partnership with The Boeing Company for maritime surveillance, and during the Unmanned Warrior 2016 exercise hosted by the Royal British Navy, Boeing and Liquid Robotics demonstrated a network of persistent USVs that detected, reported and tracked a live diesel submarine. On December 6, 2016, Boeing acquired Liquid Robotics.

The Wave Glider is composed of two parts: the float, roughly the size and shape of a large surfboard, travels on the surface; the sub or wing rack hangs below on an umbilical tether 13–26 feet long, equipped with a rudder and a thruster for additional thrust during extreme conditions. It leverages the difference in motion between the ocean surface and calmer water below to create forward propulsion without fuel. The Next Generation Wave Glider, announced on September 7, 2017, includes advancements for expanded sensor payloads and increased energy and storage capacity for long-duration missions in high sea states and high latitudes.

Reader's Guide

Liquid Robotics' significance lies in its development of the Wave Glider, a persistent unmanned surface vehicle that operates without fuel by harvesting wave energy, enabling deployments of many months. This capability has been applied across defense, maritime surveillance, commercial oil and gas, and scientific research. The Wave Glider has been used to track great white sharks, patrol marine protected areas for the United Kingdom’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office to protect against illegal fishing, assess the health of the Great Barrier Reef, and collect data through extreme storms. It also detected a live diesel submarine during the Unmanned Warrior 2016 exercise. The company's Digital Ocean initiative aims to establish the data collection and communications infrastructure needed to support an Internet of Things for the ocean, addressing issues in UN Sustainable Development Goal #14. The Wave Glider's Guinness World Record for the longest journey by an autonomous unmanned surface vehicle—7,939 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean—demonstrates its endurance. Liquid Robotics' acquisition by Boeing integrated its technology into broader defense and space capabilities, while its relocation to Herndon, Virginia in 2022 reflects ongoing organizational evolution.

Did You Know?

• In 2013, a Wave Glider named Benjamin Franklin set a Guinness World Record for the longest journey by an autonomous unmanned surface vehicle, traveling 7,939 nautical miles from San Francisco to Australia.
• During the Unmanned Warrior 2016 exercise, a network of Wave Gliders detected, reported and tracked a live diesel submarine.

From Whale Songs to Wave-Powered Robotics

The story of Liquid Robotics begins not with military applications or commercial ventures, but with a desire to listen to humpback whales. In 2003, Joe Rizzi, then chairman of the Jupiter Research Foundation, set a personal challenge: create a device that could maintain its position in open water without any anchoring, run continuously around the clock, and do so without disturbing the marine environment or the whales themselves. After years of trial and error, he brought in the Hine family to help build an unmoored, station-keeping data buoy. Roger Hine, a mechanical engineer and robotics specialist connected to Stanford University, devoted a full year to testing various configurations and power sources. His breakthrough came in 2005, when he conceived the Wave Glider. Just over a year later, in January 2007, Hine and Rizzi formally established Liquid Robotics in Sunnyvale, California, turning a whale-watching curiosity into a company that would reshape how humanity monitors the world's oceans.

A Two-Body Design That Rides the Sea

The Wave Glider's physical design is elegantly simple yet ingeniously effective. The vehicle consists of two distinct components: a float, roughly the size and shape of a large surfboard, that rides on the ocean's surface, and a submerged unit called the sub or wing rack, suspended beneath on an umbilical tether ranging from 13 to 26 feet in length. The sub carries a rudder for directional control and a thruster that provides extra propulsion during challenging conditions such as doldrums or strong currents. The core principle is exploiting the natural difference in motion between the choppy surface layer and the comparatively still water just below it, converting that relative movement into continuous forward thrust without consuming any fuel. This fuel-free operation is what allows the vehicle to remain at sea for months at a time. In September 2017, Liquid Robotics unveiled a next-generation model with expanded sensor capacity, greater energy storage, and improved performance in sea state six and above, while retaining the ability to operate autonomously or under remote pilot control via satellite, BGAN, cellular, or Wi-Fi links.

From Partnership to Acquisition: The Boeing Era

Liquid Robotics' trajectory shifted dramatically in September 2014 when it entered a formal partnership with The Boeing Company, focused on advancing maritime surveillance capabilities. Over the following three years, the two organizations collaborated on integrating unmanned surface systems to deliver a seafloor-to-space communications architecture aimed at anti-submarine warfare. The culmination of that work arrived during the Unmanned Warrior 2016 exercise, hosted by the Royal British Navy, where a coordinated network of persistent Wave Gliders successfully detected, reported, and tracked a live diesel submarine for the first time in a public demonstration. The exercise proved the platform's operational credibility in a combat-relevant scenario. On December 6, 2016, Boeing completed its acquisition of Liquid Robotics, making the company a wholly owned subsidiary within its Defense, Space and Security division. In February 2022, the company relocated its operations from its California roots to Herndon, Virginia, further embedding itself within Boeing's national security portfolio while continuing to develop wave-powered unmanned surface vehicles for defense, surveillance, and scientific missions worldwide.

Millions of Miles and a World Record

The sheer scale of Wave Glider operations is staggering. Endurance testing began in January 2009 with a nine-day circumnavigation of Hawaii's Big Island, and later that same year a pair of vehicles completed an 82-day, 2,500-plus-mile voyage from Hawaii to San Diego. Since those early trials, the fleet has accumulated more than 1.4 million nautical miles across over 32,000 vehicle-days at sea. In 2013, a Wave Glider named Benjamin Franklin earned a Guinness World Record for the longest journey by an autonomous unmanned surface vehicle, covering 7,939 nautical miles (14,703 km) on a route from San Francisco to Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia, arriving on February 14 after just over a year of continuous travel. The vehicles have been deployed from the Arctic to the Southern Ocean, tracking great white sharks for Dr. Barbara Block at Hopkins Marine Station, patrolling marine protected areas on behalf of the United Kingdom's Foreign and Commonwealth Office to deter illegal fishing, assessing the ecological health of the Great Barrier Reef, and collecting data through extreme storm events.