Teaching working boats to steer, sense, and think - so crews can command the water from anywhere.
THE HELM, REIMAGINED. Sea Machines' command-and-control console - radar, camera feed, and a live vessel track on one screen - is the interface behind the company's autonomous and remote-operated vessels.
Boston, Massachusetts.
Autonomous technology has flown aircraft and driven cars for years, backed by billions in investment. The ocean industries - shipping, salvage, survey, spill response - largely kept a person's hands on the helm. Sea Machines Robotics set out to change that. Since 2015, the Boston company has built the control systems, remote-command links, and AI perception that let commercial and defense vessels operate remotely or steer themselves, while a crew supervises from the pier or a shore station.
The idea did not arrive in a lab. Founder Michael G. Johnson, a Texas A&M-trained marine engineer, was working on an Arctic oil-spill response operation when he began asking why so much of a vessel's work still depended on manual control in dangerous, fatiguing conditions. Before founding the company he had been a vice president at Crowley Maritime and the salvage firm TITAN Salvage - a career spent on complex, high-stakes marine projects. Sea Machines became his answer: replace manual helm control with data-driven intelligence and advanced perception.
The company's most public proof point came in 2021. A Damen-built tugboat named Nellie Bly, outfitted with the Sea Machines SM300, autonomously navigated more than 1,000 nautical miles over 13 days - around the Danish islands of Zealand, Funen and Laeso, up to Skagen, then down through the Kiel Canal to Hamburg. Merchant marine officers commanded the vessel remotely from Boston, more than 3,000 miles away. The company called it the Machine Odyssey. It was less a stunt than a demonstration of the model: a real working boat, a real route, a crew that never had to be aboard.
The ocean industries needed a robotics company. Autonomy was already flying planes and driving cars - the water was waiting.
Sea Machines does not primarily build vessels. It builds the autonomy and perception systems that bolt onto them - new hulls or existing ones. An operator can turn a conventional workboat, tug, survey craft, or unmanned surface vehicle into one that runs waypoint missions, avoids collisions, follows the rules of the road, and can be commanded from shore.
The problems it targets are the ones marine operators live with daily: crew fatigue on long shifts, low-visibility navigation, the risk and cost of putting people in hazardous spots, and the difficulty of getting more done with fewer hands. By keeping a human in command but out of the boat, the company aims to raise safety and productivity at once.
From retrofit control kits to a turnkey autonomous vessel, plus the software that ties a fleet together.
Industrial-grade autonomous command-and-control system: remote operation, waypoint and mission navigation, collision avoidance, and rules-of-the-road compliance.
Wireless remote-helm control from up to ~1 km away, steering propulsion and onboard equipment. Type-approved by ABS, U.S. Coast Guard, and Bureau Veritas.
AI-powered computer-vision sensor that detects, classifies, and tracks objects on the water to boost situational awareness and avoid collisions.
The company's first turnkey autonomous unmanned surface vehicle - a fully integrated platform rather than a retrofit kit.
APIs for streaming vessel data and integrating remote control, plus a dashboard to command and monitor multiple vessels from one screen.
Intelligent voyage control developed with HamiltonJet for waterjet-propelled vessels.
Most of the ocean economy still runs on manual control. Sea Machines is among a small group of companies - alongside names like Saildrone, Ocean Infinity, L3Harris, and Orca AI - building the autonomy and perception layer beneath it. Its niche is the commercial and defense workboat: the tug, the survey vessel, the spill-response craft, the low-profile military USV.
That positioning increasingly points at defense. In 2025 the company launched six new products aimed at highly-adaptive marine autonomy, answering demand from defense organizations for commercially-driven, asymmetric fleet capability. It already supplies SM300 autonomy toward the U.S. Marine Corps' Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel program.
Tens of millions raised across seed, Series A, and later rounds from an unusual mix of automotive, marine, and defense strategics.
Marine engineer Michael G. Johnson starts the company in Boston to bring autonomy to the marine industries.
Raises roughly $1.5M to build its first autonomy systems.
Closes a $10M round and trials perception tech aboard an A.P. Moller-Maersk ice-class ship.
Launches its first commercial line for autonomous and remote vessel control.
SM200 gains ABS and U.S. Coast Guard approvals; secures multi-year U.S. defense agreements.
Nellie Bly autonomously runs 1,000+ nautical miles, commanded from Boston.
David "Chip" Wasson becomes CEO; the company unveils SELKIE and discloses a $12M round.
Launches six new products for adaptive marine autonomy across defense and commercial fleets.
2018 trial of computer vision and LiDAR perception aboard an ice-class container ship - among the first on a commercial vessel.
2021 collaboration to develop remote command and autonomous solutions across commercial and yacht markets.
Multi-year agreements supplying SM300 autonomy, including for the Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel program.
Joint development of JETSense Intelligent Voyage Control for waterjet-propelled vessels.
Used Scale's data-labeling platform to train and refine its marine computer-vision models.
Regulatory and program partnerships underpinning type approvals and public-sector deployments.