NGRNTwelve years ago, a group of U.S. Navy veterans envisioned a way to overcome the tyranny of distance in maritime security. Today, that vision lives on in the words of Ocean Aero CEO Kevin Decker, who shares the next phase of Triton’s evolution – from handcrafted machines to AI-driven fleets.
“A tyranny of distance” – the Pacific challenge that sparked innovation
The company itself, Ocean Aero, was founded 12 years ago, and it was founded by Veterans of the U.S. Navy who had done work in the Pacific. As you know, the ocean is a vast place, with an enormous amount of territory to cover. Human beings are small compared to the scale of the ocean and we simply don’t have enough personnel to cover it all. When you think about some of our adversaries around the world, their industrial capacity base – what we in the US call the industrial manufacturing base – is often bigger than ours. Take China, for example: they can build ships faster than the United States. So not only is there the problem of distance – what we often call “tyranny of distance” in any ocean, not just the Pacific – but there’s also the challenge of other countries being able to produce large naval vessels more rapidly than we can.
So how do you keep up with that kind of challenge? The original founders of Ocean Aero believed there was really only one way: by developing smaller, faster, and more agile technologies that don’t require people on board. If we could build ocean drones, just like we build aerial drones that operate autonomously, we could match production scales with U.S. adversaries and cover more ocean territory with fewer human resources. There simply aren’t enough people to patrol such vast expanses of water. That was the original concept. As the founders began to design the Triton, they realized a key problem: a swarm of small surface drones would be easy targets for faster boats. In any direct encounter, the drone typically loses. When a drone meets a human-operated vessel, the human usually wins. But in the ocean, the best way to escape danger is not to run – it’s to disappear. To dive. A drone or robot cannot outrun a large ship or a helicopter. It can’t evade aerial surveillance. But if it can submerge – to escape a hurricane, a curious fisherman, or a hostile nation-state – it has a much better chance of survival. That’s why, 12 years ago, they began developing what they now call the world’s only dual-modality platform.
But if it’s such a good idea, why is it still the only one of its kind? When you put the two technologies together, it’s actually very difficult to get the physics and the chemistry combined together to make a singular technology. Many people who try, fail to succeed. There is a large prime contractor in the US who is trying right now, and it’s taking a lot of work and patience to just begin the process. It’s taking them hundreds of millions of dollars and years of effort and it’s still in the early phases of research and development. It’s larger than our Triton and doesn’t nearly have our capabilities yet. Everyone is still trying to figure this out, but Ocean Aero has been able to figure out how to build this small, intelligent, lightweight, yet still submersible design. That was what the founders set out to do, they got people’s attention.
A medium fish in the right pond – building a new home in Mississippi
When they first started this, Teledyne was the first large investor into Ocean Aero 10 years ago. Then as time went on and they succeeded with making the Triton a true dual-modality vehicle, Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense prime contractor, invested and today owns a very large portion of Ocean Aero. They invested into the technology because it was so novel and so innovative and actually able to perform. As time went on, Ocean Aero became ready to scale its business both in terms of manufacturing and in rolling out the technology to different customers. At this stage, the company founders needed other people to help with the business. The skill sets needed to build a business like figuring out finance and manufacturing and commercial sales activation are oftentimes different from those needed to establish the original business. People who are good at one skillset usually haven’t got experience in the other. It was a natural evolution of time where the original founder said, we just need some more help. Four and a half years ago, Ocean Aero added its new management team to include former executives from GE and Lockheed Martin, as well as smaller companies that shared Ocean Aero’s entrepreneurial spirit.
Then the company began assessing its physical location. We were in San Diego, California. Beautiful weather, stable oceans, and a big military presence from an operating perspective. But we looked around and we said it was really expensive and we don’t really have a lot of big ship building industry around us. It was also hard for such a fledgling startup to get much attention from the politicians in California with it being such a large and populated place. So right after we rebooted the firm four and a half years ago, we moved the company from San Diego, California to Gulfport, Mississippi. The state of Mississippi was very helpful to us in many ways and we remain very grateful to the state’s leadership. When we got to Mississippi, they helped us build a building through tax incentives and grants, incentives and special allowances to build and put a facility where nothing of its kind had ever been before, and they gave us the support we needed to find and hire a new, high quality employee base. Then they helped us to integrate into the American defense budget. We had politicians able to help us, local universities able to help us, a manufacturing base able to help us, all with a lower cost base. And so we moved the whole company in 2022 and built the building that we are operating out of today; 63,000 sq. ft. of modern manufacturing capability. That is where we now have all of our manufacturing lines. That is where we have all of our centers of engineering all production, and all headquarters today. Now we’re a medium fish in the right sized pond, and we couldn’t be more proud of our new home.
Beyond borders: exporting the Ocean Aero model to the world
Looking ahead, I believe we should continue with this model. It doesn’t have to be exclusively American-centric. As we consider the global landscape, I see potential in regions like Indonesia and the Philippines for the Pacific, as well as in the Middle East — particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In Europe, I see strong possibilities in Romania and Ukraine. If countries, cities, or regions around the world are interested in establishing local manufacturing and pursuing national engineering efforts, it doesn’t have to revolve solely around American or NATO-centric technologies. In fact, many U.S. technologies are not even exportable due to ITAR regulations or because they involve highly classified payloads, like those carried by the Triton, that cannot be shared internationally. But if nations want to invest in manufacturing and engineering (whether software or hardware) and are willing to support this through their national budgets, including procurement of Tritons and related payloads once developed, we are actively seeking global partners. We want to collaborate to establish Ocean Aero Romania, Ocean Aero Ukraine, Ocean Aero Black Sea – all under the same brand, with the same symbols, same core technology, and the same Triton platform but adapted to meet local needs and produced locally.
This kind of model offers shared costs, shared profits, and most importantly localized capability. It creates local jobs and generates technologies that do not require approval from the U.S. government. We are proud citizens and patriots of the United States, but we also consider ourselves global citizens. We’re not trying to hoard innovation, we believe this technology should be used for good around the world. And we see Ukraine and Romania, especially together, as excellent partners to make that vision a reality. That’s essentially where we are today. Ukraine, along with the entire group of Black Sea nations facing threats from Russia, has the potential to leap forward, just as it did with aerial drones on land. It now has the same opportunity to pioneer advancements in maritime drone technology. As the war hopefully begins to wind down, the Black Sea will remain littered with sea mines and filled with risks and uncertainty. Ukraine and its partners are in a prime position to advance underwater drone capabilities to tackle this challenge. The goal is to clean up the sea without putting more human lives at risk – too many lives have already been lost. Let the robots do the dangerous work of mine removal. But achieving that requires advanced software – software capable of gathering and analyzing data, working collaboratively in swarms, and adapting in real-time to environmental conditions. These are the three pillars of this next technological phase: the era of AI-driven maritime autonomy.
How Triton could defend the Black Sea?
If you were trying to disable other drones, whether in the air or underwater, there are a few ways to do it. The first method is the most traditional: using kinetic force, such as explosives or projectiles. You could easily weaponize the Triton for this purpose. We’ve already successfully launched a variety of aerial assets from the platform, and it doesn’t take much imagination to see how those could be adapted into offensive capabilities.
The second method involves electronic warfare – specifically, jamming drones using high-power signals and frequencies emitted from the Triton. There’s a U.S. company called Epirus that specializes in this kind of technology: they develop directed energy systems that function like energy shields. These systems emit pulses that disorient and disable drones by overwhelming their communication systems, effectively “confusing them to death.”
The third method is similar, but more destructive – using an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) or directed energy burst to fry the drone’s circuitry, taking it out of the sky or the water entirely. Methods two and three are both forms of energy-based attacks: one jams, the other destroys. While I won’t claim that implementing them is simple, conceptually, they’re relatively straightforward to pursue.
We’ve certainly been observing Ukrainian engineers closely over the past three years, and their work has been nothing short of remarkable. What Ukraine has accomplished, not just in terms of technological innovation, but in turning those innovations into practical battlefield applications, is absolutely stunning. I believe the entire world is learning from Ukraine’s example.
Open Doors for Ukrainian Collaboration
Have we considered working with Ukrainians? We think about it every single day. The challenge is, we just haven’t yet found anyone who has said, “Let’s do it”. But I believe and I truly think this would be the most effective approach – that we need government collaboration to make it work. We need backing at the state level. We need someone to say: “Look, this Ukrainian company, or a group of companies, is going to work with Ocean Aero. Here’s the mission: we want you to build these systems and deploy 200 Tritons in a perimeter around Odesa, or wherever else is strategically important, whether for defensive or offensive purposes. We want 50 of them with one capability, 100 with another, and the remaining 50 with a third type”. We could manufacture them in Ukraine avoiding export-import complications, mitigating ITAR restrictions, and enabling full local production. We would absolutely love to do that. Sign me up. I’ll be there tomorrow. I can fly overnight – I’ll be there tomorrow. We just need to figure out the mechanism to make it happen.
European hub on the shores of the Black Sea
We are capable of producing the Triton in both the United States and Europe. The facility in Constanța, Romania, is absolutely outstanding – a state-of-the-art site developed in partnership with our Romanian collaborators. Located directly on the Black Sea, the facility offers not only a strategic position but also the infrastructure for both engineering and manufacturing. While we haven’t yet activated full-scale production there, the groundwork has been laid. The floor plans are finalized, the building is structurally ready, and Tritons have already been transported in and out of the country for various missions. More units are expected to return to Romania very soon. We do have the capacity to manufacture locally. The infrastructure is excellent and what’s more, the facility is situated near a Romanian military base, allowing us to conduct training for regional forces. From training to manufacturing to engineering, everything is in place and ready to scale.
As soon as the governments in the region choose to move forward, we are ready to accelerate operations. The partnerships are in place, the building is secured, and the system is ready. All that’s needed is the green light.
From Zero to Triton
With our current production capacity and a single work shift, we can manufacture approximately 12 Tritons per year. If needed, we could run three shifts, operating 24 hours a day, and increase output to 360 units annually at our U.S. facility. The facility in Romania is smaller, but it could also produce around 100 Tritons per year. Combined with the American output, this gives us the potential to manufacture up to 460 units annually. Of course, production volumes will vary depending on the size and needs of each country, but I can say that the infrastructure surrounding the Romanian facility is quite substantial. If necessary, we could expand into an adjacent building – the capacity to scale is already in place. And that capacity to scale is critical. Scaling production isn’t easy – it requires both tooling and skilled personnel. However, our manufacturing process doesn’t rely on heavy machinery. In business terms, we operate with a “light CAPEX” (capital expenditure) model. The process involves molds and mostly lightweight tooling, which means setup is relatively simple.
To build one Triton in a single month, we require about 15 people per shift. It takes roughly two months to train them, and after an additional couple of months of hands-on experience, they become fully capable. Within five months of hiring, a worker can become a productive member of a complete manufacturing team. Ultimately, the ability to scale depends on two key factors: the availability of workers with even basic experience in light manufacturing, and access to the necessary tooling, which we can provide directly from Ocean Aero or through our U.S. partners. With those elements in place, a new facility can ramp up from zero to full production within four to five months. That’s an impressive timeline – going from an empty lot to producing operational Tritons in under half a year.
We’re simply trying to emulate the spirit of Ukraine. Ukraine is now capable of producing a million drones per year, possibly even more, and we’re just trying to keep pace. Of course, there’s a big difference between manufacturing aerial drones and maritime drones. Aerial platforms are generally easier to produce. Surface drones are a bit more complex, and underwater drones are even more so. When you’re building advanced 14-foot submersible drones, designed for subsea infrastructure inspection, mine hunting, or covert operations, the challenges are greater. But the good news is that you don’t need a million Tritons. You don’t need a billion. You need just a few thousand, deployed at the right time. And we believe it’s entirely feasible to establish a manufacturing footprint, either in Romania or with annexes in Ukraine, capable of producing a few thousand units per year.
Triton’s three-phase leap into the future of maritime autonomy
Today, the name of the game is evolution. We are entering the next chapter of development, and it can be broken into three major phases.
Phase One – refining the core platform
By the end of this year, we plan to produce a Generation 4 Triton. It will feature more power, enhanced solar collection, larger thrusters, shorter keels, expanded payload capacity, and more advanced embedded communication systems. While it becomes more capable, it will also become simpler: fewer parts, a cleaner internal layout, and a more streamlined production process. Currently, each Triton is almost hand-crafted. They are built with precision – works of art more than products of assembly lines. But with Generation 4, we aim to preserve that precision while increasing manufacturability. The form factor stays the same, but the design is optimized.
When we talk about expanding internationally, from Mississippi to Romania, Ukraine, or elsewhere, there’s no reason that components can’t be sourced globally. We already use batteries and solar panels from Germany, sensors from the UK, and parts from Mexico. While the bulk of the Triton remains American-made, we’re absolutely open to incorporating the best components from wherever innovation happens. That’s a key part of this first development track: iterating and refining the core platform.
Phase Two – payload innovation
The second major phase of development is all about payloads. Think of the Triton as a highly capable truck – a mobile platform that can dive, communicate, avoid threats, and gather data. But what really defines its mission is what you put on it. These payloads can be tailored for specific objectives: anti-submarine warfare, mine countermeasures, ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance), or electronic warfare. Some payloads allow the Triton to launch aerial drones for extended reconnaissance. And that’s just the defense domain. In the offshore energy sector, particularly in areas like Romania’s Neptune Deep project in the Black Sea, payloads could support subsea monitoring for infrastructure protection. Pipelines, cables, wellheads, risers – all are vulnerable to tampering, espionage, or damage. The Triton can carry sensors to detect anomalies, inspect structures, and collect critical environmental data.
These payload packages will be developed not just in Mississippi, but potentially in Romania, the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific – wherever local expertise can enhance mission capability. This is where global partnership becomes a force multiplier.
Phase Three – advancing Artificial Intelligence
The third phase centers on software and autonomy. Today, the Triton is autonomous – it can plan its route, navigate around obstacles, and respond to environmental inputs. But it’s not yet intelligent in the way humans are. We still need to take autonomy to the next level. Imagine a Triton encountering something unexpected – a Russian destroyer, a pod of whales, an unidentified object. Unlike a human, it can’t yet synthesize new variables and adapt dynamically. That’s where AI comes in: enabling machines to assess novel situations, process complex environmental data, and take mission-appropriate action without human input.
Even more important is swarming AI – multiple Tritons (or mixed autonomous platforms) working together with minimal communication. Let’s say one unit is disabled. The others must reconfigure tasks, rebalance responsibilities, and still complete the mission. This kind of collaborative autonomy is in its early stages, but it’s absolutely essential for large-scale deployment. And then there’s real-time onboard data processing. Imagine scanning 100 square kilometers of seabed for Russian-laid mines. Today, that data must be offloaded, reviewed by analysts, and interpreted. But what if the Triton could process it onboard, identify a mine, and send you a text: “Mine detected. Coordinates. Manufacturer. What action should be taken?” That capability is within reach. The algorithms exist. The sensors exist. We just need the will and the investment to integrate them, refine them, and put them to work. This isn’t five years out – it’s five months out. All we need are partners and customers ready to act.