Ocean Power Technologies secures new patent for offshore charging system - ICYMI

Ocean Power Technologies Inc (NYSE-A:OPTT) CEO Philipp Stratmann talked with Proactive about the company's newly awarded patent for integrated offshore charging systems.

Stratmann explained how the technology will allow autonomous surface and underwater vehicles to recharge and transfer data at sea, significantly improving mission endurance and operational flexibility.

He also outlined steps toward commercialization, including last summer's high-fidelity prototype deployment off the coast of New Jersey and ongoing discussions with government agencies and commercial partners.

The CEO noted that the company is working to bring the integrated solution to market and believes the patent strengthens its intellectual property portfolio.

Proactive: Hello. You're watching Proactive. I'm joined by Ocean Power Technologies CEO Philipp Stratmann. Philipp, very good to speak with you. How do you see this newly awarded patent transforming OPT’s commercial opportunities and the offshore energy and autonomy markets?

Philipp Stratmann: Yeah, it's great to be on. We're super excited about this patent. If you think about the opportunities this opens up in the ocean technology space, there's obviously a lot of excitement in the industry and public attention on USV and ASV and generally autonomous systems. But it's a little bit like the early days of electric vehicles onshore. It's great you've got them, but what do you do when you run out of battery juice? The ability to have chargers that we can deploy in the ocean means autonomous systems can come alongside, top up their batteries, extricate data, and then someone else can run and use that data in whatever AI system they might have to do ocean exploration and sensing. I think it's very exciting. The fact that we've been able to do this based on our in-house skill set shows we continue to innovate, and it's an exciting time to be in this space.

Can you explain how the integration of the floating charging station with PowerBuoy and WAM-V is going to improve mission endurance for your defense and commercial clients, perhaps revolutionizing the industry?

If you look at the world of autonomous systems, you have two extremes. You have long duration but generally lower speed or lower payload, or you have shorter endurance but higher payload and higher speed systems. By integrating charging systems like the PowerBuoy, you can now get all sizes, endurance, payloads, and speeds, and deploy them almost anywhere. You could imagine a system with a whole bunch of forward-deployed permanent sentinels that tell you what's going on in an area of interest. That could be a border, national security, mammal protection, or offshore energy security. Once you detect something on your sentinels, you can dispatch from one of these future docking and staging systems an autonomous vehicle to collect additional data, maybe interdict or take action upon what you've observed. That is a complete step change in the way the ocean industry could work.

What steps are you taking to commercialize these integrated products? Are there any near-term pilot deployments planned with partners or government agencies?

We did a high-fidelity prototype just off the coast of New Jersey in Raritan Bay last summer. We're currently working on commercialization. We have various vehicles deployed all over the world. Last week, we were working on some NATO exercises in the Baltic. We also have buoys installed globally. Combining the two and taking what we did last year as a prototype into a fully commercially available solution is something our team is working on now. We're looking forward to discussing this further with our customers and starting to look at where the first commercial rollouts will happen.

Given the importance of intellectual property in your sector, how does this patent fit into OPT’s broader innovation strategy and IP portfolio growth?

We like to patent things we think are absolutely crucial and critical. We don't go out and patent everything our team comes across. But this is one of those key integrated pieces that is critical to differentiate OPT commercially from others in the industry. We collaborate well with many companies and entities, and this gives us the opportunity to scale on the things we know we're good at while protecting that intellectual property as we roll this out globally. In return, we help our investors and shareholders generate the returns they are looking for.

Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and style