Saildrone is headquartered in Alameda, CA, in a former Naval Air station hangar with direct access to the waters of San Francisco Bay. The company is headquartered in Alameda, CA, and backed by BOND, XN, Standard Investments, Emerson Collective, Crowley Maritime Corporation, Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund, Lux Capital, Social Capital, Tribe Capital, The Schmidt Family Foundation, and Exor Seeds. Saildrone's patented wing technology was born from 10 years of R&D in pursuit of the land speed record. We are building the world's largest high-resolution ocean data sets, working with governments and private companies around the globe. We collect critical marine data, delivered in real-time, from any ocean at any time of year. Saildrone designs, manufactures, and operates the world’s most capable, proven, and trusted USVs. Saildrones are wind and solar-powered autonomous surface vehicles which make cost-effective ocean data collection possible at scale. All of which have a tremendous impact on humanity. Our measurements and observations, from above and below the ocean surface, provide intelligence and insight for subjects ranging from maritime security to mapping, to earth system processes such as weather forecasting, carbon cycling, global fishing, and climate change. Saildrone's vision is for a healthy ocean, and a safe, sustainable planet. For this reason, specialized drone service provider companies exist, and their significance will continue to grow, even if the automated UAV flight (i.e., without the need of a remote pilot) will become the industry standard.Delivering Knowledge from Our Oceans to Our Customers When investing in their own drone fleet, many businesses discover that the cost of drone ownership is high and exceeds CAPEX in the UAV. The drone station was thus ready for further batch production and TRL-8 technology. Some minor modifications and DFM were made as part of the DVT (the initial engineering concept and design engineering practices of EnCata concerned manufacturability and cost-efficiency of the manufacturing process) In the DVT (design validation testing, equal to TRL-7 and TRL-8) the electronics were integrated as a large module and some PCBAs were respun. The assembled and tested alpha-prototype (TRL-6) then successfully passed field tests with the customer’s drone system and telecommunication software to achieve TRL-7. Individual cells were actively balanced with an additional circuit, providing reliable charging and longer battery life. In the second iteration, Li-ion batteries were used. The 1st iteration IC design received Li-Poly batteries where individual cells were passively balanced with resistors. Skycharge has developed an autonomous smart charging system for mobile robots, automated guided vehicles (AGV), and commercial drones (UAV). In addition, a custom BMS (battery management system) had to be designed. Contact-based system enables drones and robots to self charge efficiently. Precision mechanics for hangar opening/closing, drone positioning table subsystems, and a custom 200 A peak (500 W power) charger were the particular engineering challenges we faced in achieving the TRL-5 development phase (equal to EVT).
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