U.S. Wave Glider Drone Redefines Naval Endurance With 138 Earth Orbits Without Fuel.

Liquid Robotics announced that its Wave Glider uncrewed surface vehicles have logged more than 3 million nautical miles at sea, equivalent to 138 global circumnavigations. The milestone underscores how autonomous, zero-fuel platforms are maturing into reliable assets for U.S. and allied maritime surveillance.

Liquid Robotics disclosed on November 3, 2025, that the company’s Wave Glider uncrewed surface vehicles surpassed 3,000,000 nautical miles at sea, a cumulative distance the firm equates to 138 circumnavigations of the Earth. The Sydney announcement positions the platform as the most traveled USV family to date and highlights growing defense demand for long-duration sensing in contested waters. Company leaders frame the milestone as evidence that autonomous ocean surveillance is ready to scale for maritime domain awareness, anti-submarine warfare and multi-sensor ISR.
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The wave- and solar-powered Wave Glider USV converts wave motion into thrust to carry ASW/ISR sensors, hold station autonomously for months, and survive rough areas (Picture source: Liquid Robotics).

The Wave Glider’s technical edge begins with propulsion and power. A surface float is tethered to a submerged “sub” whose articulated wings convert vertical wave motion into forward thrust, eliminating fuel and extending endurance. Solar arrays replenish batteries that power sensors, communications and a low-power auxiliary thruster for precision maneuvering and station keeping. The SV3 Block II specification cites speeds up to 2 knots in higher sea states, station-keeping within a 50 m radius and endurance up to a year, with SATCOM, cellular, Wi-Fi and line-of-sight links for tasking and data exfiltration. A purpose-built 150 m winch enables profiling casts and dipping acoustic sources, expanding vertical reach for ASW and oceanography.

The newer SV5 variant, introduced in May 2025, scales this architecture for power-hungry payloads and harsher latitudes. At more than five meters long, SV5 more than triples internal hull payload compared to SV3, doubles solar collection and storage, and is explicitly pitched for high-latitude, low-sun operations. Published specs list nominal solar input of 525 W, battery capacity of 15.7 kWh, comparable water speeds to SV3, and a 100 m station-keeping radius. Liquid Robotics also flags SV5 for autonomous teaming and higher-bandwidth offload, signaling a path to AI-enabled picket lines and collaborative behaviors at sea.

Allied forces can use Wave Gliders as persistent sentries to widen awareness at chokepoints and EEZ seams while freeing manned ships and patrol aircraft for higher-end missions. The U.S. Navy has already experimented at sea, launching a Wave Glider from USNS Burlington during UNITAS 2023 as part of Fourth Fleet’s unmanned integration campaign for maritime domain awareness and counter-narcotics. Australia’s Defence Innovation Hub funded a prototype that marries a KraitArray thin-line towed sonar with onboard processing for autonomous ASW cueing, a concept aligned with Canberra’s push for integrated undersea surveillance. On the software side, the platform’s Regulus autonomy and WGMS command-and-control suite support fleet operations, vessel detection and avoidance, and real-time retasking through open interfaces, easing integration with existing C4ISR networks.

The record also rests on hard-earned environmental resilience. Liquid Robotics notes that its fleets have operated through hurricanes and typhoons, a claim echoed in the company’s earlier one-million-mile milestone in 2016 and reiterated in the new release. That survivability, coupled with zero-fuel propulsion, underwrites dual-use security missions. The Japan Coast Guard built a multi-district Wave Glider network to deliver real-time coastal observations in rough seas where crewed craft struggle, and NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries partnered with Liquid Robotics to deter illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing while monitoring sensitive ecosystems.

Liquid Robotics unveiled the hybrid wave-and-solar SV3 in 2013, then announced a next-generation platform in 2017 with improved performance in high sea states and at high latitudes. Boeing moved to acquire the company in December 2016, integrating Wave Glider into a broader seabed-to-space ISR portfolio. This year’s SV5 launch formalized the shift from a scientific workhorse to a heavier-payload USV tailored for defense sensing, and in March 2025, the firm signed an MoU with India’s Sagar Defense Engineering to co-develop and co-produce systems that strengthen regional undersea domain awareness and sustainment.

A networked line of wave-and-solar USVs towing thin-line arrays and hosting RF and EO/IR payloads can hold station for months, report contacts over SATCOM and act as tripwires that cue aircraft, P-8s and surface combatants. The cost and risk profile is lower than crewed patrols, and as autonomy and onboard processing mature, SV5-class vehicles are positioned to operate as adaptive, AI-driven sentinels that mesh with undersea and space assets in distributed maritime operations.