In Focus: Seaglider Propulsion System

Getting to come out on the boat and out in the water and see all of the engineering that you've worked on for the last three years come to life is pretty amazing. I've seen the propellers tested extensively at our facility on the thrust stand. This is the first time I've seen the propellers spin on vehicle with my own eyes on water where they belong. I can't say I can really describe it in words, to be honest. Three, two, one. Taking something that never existed, make it real, and then make it perform. That's what's fascinating about engineering. For the Seaglider, the propulsion system, the analogy that I always like to draw is that it's the heart and the blood of the Seaglider. The batteries are the heart, provides the energy for the vehicle to move. Motor one spinning in three, two, one. The high voltage cabling is the vanes. And then the propellers are what propel the vehicle forwards or the muscles. That's what's really cool about the system, right? It's the system that makes the vehicle move. The overall goal for propulsion as a system in the Seaglider is efficiency. We have the energy, we need to put it into the air to move the vehicle forward and do it as efficiently as possible. While that's an achievable task, it is complex and we have the knowledge in the building to do that. Think about a propeller blade sweeping through the air. How do we do that as efficiently as possible? How do we transfer energy from a battery to a motor as efficiently as possible to provide range and performance to the Seaglider? What's really exciting to me is the first flight and what that's going to be like. Unleashing the entire propulsion system all at once to its peak performance is going to be really fantastic.