Underwater autonomous ships and robots could play an important role in defense operations, but submersibles have historically had difficulty communicating over long distances without surfacing. But if you try to send it, you obviously run the risk of exposure.
Skana Robotics believes it has made a breakthrough in underwater communication using AI, but the same cannot be said for the large-scale language models that the industry is touting today.
Tel Aviv-based Skana has developed new features for its fleet management software system SeaSphere. This allows groups of vessels to communicate with each other underwater over long distances using AI.
The system will allow ships to share data and react to what they hear from other robots. This will allow individual units to autonomously adapt to the information they receive and change course or mission while working toward the same general mission as the fleet, Skana said. The company says its software can also be used to secure underwater infrastructure and supply chains.
“Ship-to-ship communication is one of the key challenges when deploying multi-domain, multi-vessel operations,” Idan Levy, co-founder and CEO of Skana Robotics, told TechCrunch. “The question we are addressing is how can we deploy hundreds of unmanned vessels into operations, share data, and communicate on land and underwater?”
Teddy Lazebnik, an AI scientist and professor at the University of Haifa in Israel, led the research to develop this new capability. Lazebnik told TechCrunch that building this decision-making algorithm did not have access to the latest AI technology and had to use AI algorithms that are a bit older and more mathematically driven.
“The new algorithm has two properties: it is more powerful, but as a result it is less predictable,” Lazebnik said. “If you’re paying for the performance or ‘wow effect’ of this algorithm, you’re paying for the explainability, the predictability, and actually the generality with the old algorithm. ”
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Skana Robotics was founded in 2024 and exited stealth mode earlier this year. The company is now focusing on sales to European governments and businesses as maritime threat levels increase due to the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Levy said the company is negotiating a large government contract and hopes to conclude it by the end of the year. Skana hopes to release a commercial version of its product in 2026 and begin demonstrating its technology in the wild.
“We want to show that this can be used at scale,” Lazebnik said. “We claim that our software can handle complex maneuvers, etc. We want to show that. We claim that we know how to manage operations. We want the admirals of the EU and EU countries to really check this argument and see for themselves that we can actually get results.”
