Mike Flanigan is co-founder and CEO of Seasats, a San Diego-based company building long-range autonomous surface vessels for commercial and defense missions. This is his second time on Drone Wars — and he came back with stories. We get into how Seasats recently sailed a Lightfish autonomous boat through the Taiwan Strait and found themselves tracking Chinese Navy warships along the way. Mike breaks down the asymmetry: a $100M+ corvette with 70+ sailors versus a sub-$1M boat operated remotely from San Diego. We also cover the state of the USV industry, the debate over large vs. small autonomous vessels, operating in the Indo-Pacific, their joint Navy/Marine Corps APFIT contract win, and how Seasats is using AI to cut a six-hour quality check down to 20 minutes. Topics: Why San Diego is becoming the maritime autonomy capital of the U.S. Lightfish, Quickfish, Heavyfish — Seasats&#x27; product lineup Taiwan Strait transit &amp; Chinese Navy encounter The real numbers behind U.S. USV production Large unmanned surface vessels: hype or hope? Mines in the Strait of Hormuz APFIT: joint Navy &amp; Marine Corps contract win AI in physical manufacturing About Drone Wars The Drone Wars Podcast serves the warfighters, builders and innovators who all share a common goal: get the best tech into the hands of those on the frontlines. Dan Magy, Co-Founder and CEO of Firestorm Labs, explores all things defense and geopolitics with experts in the industry.

HIs Autonomous USV Ran Into Chinese Warships in the Taiwan Strait: Mike Flanigan

Drone Wars Podcast

It was just like a foregone conclusion that like a country with no Navy in literally 18 months, 24 months destroyed 60%, 50% of a huge Navy. We were a couple kids. We built a long range autonomous surface vessel, satellite connected, solar panels, power efficient, surface platform. It had a public tracking page. It went kind of viral.

And we got all this inbound from people being like, hey, I need this for fisheries. Hey, I need this for offshore construction. Hey, I need this for the Navy. All of our products are coming in sub a million dollars. Lightfish as well sub a million dollars. You know, this is like an FPV drone question early in the Ukraine-Russia war. People are like, ah, those little drones. You're just using those because they're cheap. Turns out little drones and lots of them are really, really game changing.

Today's guest is the co-founder and CEO at CSATS, a San Diego based leader in long range unmanned surface vehicles. He's worked with the United States Marine Corps, Navy and commercial entities around the world. I mean, the resource asymmetry is just absolutely mind boggling. We kind of had some interactions with a few Chinese warships. Our operators were sitting in San Diego running these vehicles. That Chinese Type 55 destroyer had about 300 people on board.

And the cost of that is nearly a billion dollars. Please welcome my buddy, Mike Flanagan. Mr. Mike, thanks for coming back for round two of Drone Wars podcast. Absolutely, Dan. It's fun to be back. We're in a slightly larger, you know, podcasting studio, I guess is the right phrase.

HIs Autonomous USV Ran Into Chinese Warships in the Taiwan Strait: Mike Flanigan

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

HIs Autonomous USV Ran Into Chinese Warships in the Taiwan Strait: Mike Flanigan

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.