Happy Tuesday evening.
Leviathan's team would like to share some updates that occurred over June.
BLUF
We're performing tethered in-water testing of our early 3D-printed prototype.
Our research has shifted from optimizing individual technologies to understanding how every watt moves through an underwater vehicle.
Over the past month, we've been mapping the entire energy stack — from energy harvesting to payload power draw — to identify where endurance is truly won.
Computational simulations across multiple energy generation methods are now underway alongside continued prototype integration.
Tech Progress and Roadmap
May concluded with subsystem validation. June was the month of integration.
One word has defined our engineering process recently: graveyard.
Building an AUV from first principles means rapidly exploring ideas, testing them, and discarding the majority. Every subsystem teaches us something about the constraints imposed on the next. We welcome dead ends as the cost of converging on the right architecture.
Current efforts include:
- An in-house CTD sensor designed around low power consumption and manufacturability.
- Lab-grade biofilm experimentation focused on increasing continuous power output.
- An in-house brushless propulsion system optimized for minimum energy consumption.
Each of these developments feeds directly into our objective: maximizing endurance.
Looking at Energy as a System
Last month we discussed our validation work on biofilms as an energy source.
While well-researched as a standalone system, attachment to a moving body poses a series of new challenges.
Each challenge can be broken down into these fundamental layers:
- Energy Generation
- Energy Storage
- Energy Management
- Payload Power Draw
Improvements across each layer compound into meaningful increases in operational endurance.
Over the coming months, our primary focus is on enhancing energy generation and management while leveraging existing commercial solutions for a base energy storage system.
Energy Generation
Currently, we're developing a parallelized experimental pipeline capable of evaluating multiple biofilm configurations simultaneously. Our objective is to understand which biological, chemical, and material combinations scale most effectively for long-duration underwater operation.
We've built a digital simulation tool to test hundreds of different configurations before they're physically developed, allowing us to have baselines for our data. Moreover, as we move to procure hardware and lab equipment, focusing costs on feasible R&D efforts will allow us to meaningfully execute on our pipeline.
Energy Management
Harvesting energy is only half the problem.
Equally important is determining when energy should be stored, when it should be discharged, and how those decisions affect vehicle behavior over missions spanning weeks or months.
Current work is focused on developing instrumentation, logging infrastructure, and power characterization tools that allow us to understand these behaviors. We're building the data capture system first, then moving to integrate optimization algorithms.
Payload Power Draw
Every watt saved is effectively another watt generated.
Development this month has therefore focused on reducing baseline vehicle power consumption through two parallel efforts.
The first is an in-house conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) sensor designed around cost and power efficiency. Any basic AUV for ISR needs a CTD sensor — but current market price is upwards of $5000. We're building one for $300.
The second is continued development of an efficient brushless propulsion system intended to minimize power draw without sacrificing controllability. We'll be integrating our river test data primarily for this development.
Reducing the demands imposed upon the vehicle allows every future improvement to have a greater operational impact.
Government
Throughout June we continued conversations across the defense ecosystem surrounding autonomous maritime systems and future acquisition pathways.
Our agency of focus for the month was ONR. We spent a lot of time in May talking to procurement and acquisition specialists. This month, the focus was on specification writers and R&D labs. These conversations added depth to our perspective, emphasizing the significance of well-documented data in addition to the mission capabilities we developed in May.
Over the coming months, we plan to explore another key government specialization: capability testing environments. We're SAM certified, and beginning to explore testing platforms such as Vulcan SOF.
Commercial
Our mission is to provide endurance for all AUVs. While we steadfastly remain focused on our efforts to support our nation, we've also begun identifying early commercial environments where portions of our technology stack can be validated through pilot deployments.
These discussions continue to shape how we prioritize integration, reliability, and manufacturability during early development.
Manufacturing & Supply Chain
Early-stage hardware companies often think about manufacturing after a prototype works.
We're intentionally doing the opposite.
Over June, we solidified relationships across electronics suppliers, composite manufacturers, battery vendors, and shipbuilders throughout Taiwan and the U.S.
Armed with our growing graveyard and data from in-water trials, our focus over the coming months shifts to converting those relationships into production pathways capable of supporting future deployment.
Manufacturability, NDAA compliance, procurement stability, and long-term scalability continue to influence architectural decisions from the beginning rather than becoming constraints later.
What's Next
The current prototype continues to move through integration and controlled in-water testing.
Over the coming month, our focus shifts toward tethered open-water testing, continued subsystem integration, and validating how these independent technologies begin functioning as a single vehicle.
Every month removes another layer of uncertainty.
Every subsystem that survives integration brings us one step closer to proving a fundamentally different approach to underwater endurance.
Demo videos out soon.
– Leviathan