BOATIE: Buoyant Over-the-horizon Autonomous Tactical Insertion & Extraction

BOATIE (Buoyant Over-the-horizon Autonomous Tactical Insertion & Extraction) is a low-cost, autonomous surface vessel engineered for air-drop deployment, contested maritime recovery, and sustainment missions. It provides a stand-off recovery capability that requires no launch infrastructure, no manned assets, and no human intervention post-deployment. Once released from an air-dropped delivery vehicle, BOATIE survives water impact, auto-inflates, auto-rigs, and autonomously navigates to pre-programmed GPS waypoints. The system is powered by solar-augmented electric propulsion and integrates GreyCliff’s ROBOBOX autonomy core, which includes Pixhawk-based autopilot, ArduPilot firmware, and a MAVProxy mission computer. Communications are resilient and layered using PACE architecture, supporting mesh networking, Iridium Certus, and high-bandwidth SATCOM. The entire vessel is compact enough to fit in a 66" × 36" × 22" container and is designed for deployment from fixed-wing aircraft such as the C-130 or C-17 using an air-dropped glide vehicle.There is no existing USV under $25,000 capable of autonomous personnel or cargo recovery after air-drop. BOATIE is purpose-built to fill this gap. Its architecture is composed entirely of proven components, reducing technical risk while enabling rapid development and scaling. The system is currently at TRL 6–7. This Direct to Phase II effort will bring it to TRL 8–9 by completing structural integration, electronics hardening, and validating full deployment and recovery in a contested maritime scenario. The program culminates in a live sling-load deployment that demonstrates water impact survivability, autonomous operation, and remote recovery. BOATIE supports Operational Imperative 5 by eliminating the need for forward-deployed maritime basing, and Operational Imperative 7 by reducing the risk to crews and aircraft during CSAR and sustainment missions in A2/AD environments. This capability provides the Air Force with a stand-off option for recovering isolated personnel or delivering supplies in denied littoral zones. A commercial version of BOATIE, stripped of military comms and hardened components, is priced under $5,000 and is already in demand across the disaster response, offshore inspection, and environmental monitoring markets.  BOATIE gives the Air Force an immediately fieldable, doctrine-changing capability to conduct autonomous recovery where no manned system can safely operate.