Our Technology
Why are automation and robots at the core of your technology?
We believe that the potential for seaweed as a base material for sustainable industry and carbon dioxide removal is enormous. The costs involved have to come down about 100x for the lowest value use cases, and between 10-50x for the mid range. Bringing automation and robotics together to solve challenges, is now a real proposition. Apart from that they are both incredibly cool.
Boats and people at sea get expensive and unviable quickly. Especially once the water gets deeper. That’s where we know robotics can play a role.
Aquaculture infrastructure,is benefiting from this approach, but is still in its early days, and there is lots of room for innovation. Some industries are further ahead - fisheries for example - but our relationship with the sea is still largely one of hunter gathering.
15% of protein comes from the ocean, a number that will likely rise as farmed fish, shellfish and seaweeds play an increased role in the diets of people and animals. There is a huge opportunity for innovation here. Ideally innovation coupled with lessons in sustainability, taken from agriculture.
If you’re looking for a way to reduce costs, increase safety and increase the ability to respond to or prepare for extreme events, you’d be hard pressed to find a better approach than robotics with automation.
Exploiting this sounds difficult, and it is, but the sophistication needed to make great improvements is surprisingly low.
An example of Seaweed Generation’s approach is the AlgaRay. An automatable vessel, yes. With some specific features to help it gather and sink Sargassum, sure. But, what it really brings together is a collection of off-the-shelf technologies, such as drone programming and cameras, with a handful of simple mechanisms to help it do its specific job. AlgaRay is elegant in its simplicity and efficiency.
That’s where the magic happens - in the intersection between existing components and simple specific upgrades. Couple this with a touch of domain knowledge, data and machine learning, and you have yourself an innovation. Often those innovations can be reused and applied easily to other technologies.
This principle is one that Seaweed Generation intends to apply across a host of approaches as we develop solutions for managing biomass. We’re developing systems for cultivation, remote monitoring, data gathering, harvesting and more.