WHY?

Why Now is the Time for Accessible Exploration

The ocean is the world’s largest and most vital resource, yet it remains one of the least understood parts of our planet. Historically, the power to explore and harness the ocean's potential has been restricted to those with enormous financial means—major governments, well-funded research institutions, and multinational corporations. This exclusivity has limited our ability to unlock the ocean’s secrets and its resources, making deep-sea exploration a privilege rather than a shared endeavor for humanity.

At Anomalous, we believe it’s time to change that. The oceans belong to all of us, and understanding them is key to the future of our planet. That's why we’re focused on making the ocean accessible, bringing innovative, biomimetic underwater robotics to a global community at a fraction of the traditional cost. But it’s not just about lowering the financial barriers—it’s about empowering people to explore, protect, and sustainably benefit from our oceans in a way that hasn’t been possible before.

Why Ocean Exploration Matters to Everyone

The ocean is central to the future of our planet, impacting everything from climate regulation to food security. Yet, its depths remain largely unexplored, its ecosystems understudied, and its resources only partially understood. The ocean plays a crucial role in mitigating climate change, producing oxygen, and sustaining biodiversity. However, it's also a fragile ecosystem facing existential threats like pollution, overfishing, and coral reef degradation.

Now more than ever, we need to understand the ocean’s complex systems—not just for the sake of scientific knowledge, but to ensure we manage this critical resource responsibly. By providing affordable and adaptable autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), Anomalous is democratizing ocean access, allowing scientists, environmentalists, and communities around the world to participate in this exploration.

This is the time to act. Climate change is accelerating, marine biodiversity is under threat, and human activity in the deep sea is increasing. The more we know about the ocean now, the better we can protect it for future generations. Anomalous is helping to make that possible by removing the high financial and technological barriers that have kept many from exploring the ocean depths.

Building a More Inclusive Future for Marine Research

Until now, understanding the ocean’s mysteries has required huge budgets, specialized technology, and often multinational collaborations. This has limited ocean science to elite research institutions and countries with vast resources. For smaller nations, independent researchers, and community-led initiatives, the ocean has largely remained out of reach—an inaccessible realm despite its global importance.

At Anomalous, we’re revolutionizing that dynamic. Our Manta AUV is designed with an accessible, first-principles approach that eliminates the need for costly pressure housings and advanced materials. By mimicking nature’s solutions to navigating extreme ocean depths, we’ve developed a robot that is both affordable and highly effective—allowing anyone with a passion for ocean research to participate.

Through our innovative approach, scientists can now carry out longer-term research missions, businesses can explore ocean resources more affordably, and smaller nations can monitor their waters without massive investments. Anomalous is leveling the playing field for ocean exploration, making it possible for more people and organizations to study marine environments, make discoveries, and contribute to global knowledge.

Today, the world’s understanding of the ocean is in crisis. With deep-sea mining, coral reef degradation, and climate change threatening marine biodiversity, we need more eyes, more data, and more solutions than ever before. Yet the tools required to study the oceans have been concentrated in the hands of a few. Without broader access, critical questions about the state of marine environments go unanswered, limiting our ability to address the existential challenges facing the planet.

By making ocean exploration accessible, we’re allowing more people to contribute to understanding these challenges. Whether it’s researchers studying the impacts of climate change on coral reefs, local communities monitoring fisheries, or even schools running educational programs, the Manta AUV offers an affordable, easy-to-operate solution that anyone can deploy.

This also has far-reaching implications for countries and regions that have historically lacked the resources to explore their own marine territories. With the Manta AUV, smaller nations can gain sovereignty over their own waters, better manage their natural resources, and take a seat at the global table of ocean research and policy.

Enabling Commercial Industries and Local Economies

The benefits of democratizing ocean access go beyond scientific research. By lowering the costs of subsea operations, we’re enabling a range of commercial industries to thrive. Whether it’s sustainable fisheries, energy exploration, or underwater infrastructure, the ocean holds the key to countless economic opportunities. However, the high price of operating in such challenging environments has limited these industries to a handful of well-capitalized companies.

With the Manta AUV, we’re making it possible for businesses of all sizes to access ocean resources efficiently and affordably. Our biomimetic propulsion system and hybrid buoyancy approach allow the Manta to travel vast distances with minimal energy consumption, significantly reducing operational costs. This means fewer maintenance cycles, more affordable mission planning, and greater autonomy for businesses.

For smaller companies and developing nations, the impact is particularly profound. By enabling affordable subsea exploration, Anomalous is helping new players enter industries like telecommunications, marine resource management, and offshore energy—spurring innovation and driving local economies forward. This opens the door to sustainable economic development and more equitable access to the ocean’s vast resources.

Marine Sovereignty and Security: Securing the Future of Our Seas

While our mission at Anomalous is centered on scientific and commercial applications, we understand the critical importance of marine sovereignty in today’s world. As the ocean becomes an increasingly contested space, the ability to monitor and secure national waters is essential for governments and international bodies alike. By providing cost-effective AUVs capable of long-range missions, Anomalous is empowering countries—especially those with smaller defense budgets—to protect their maritime resources, secure underwater infrastructure, and safeguard their sovereignty.

But we also believe that national security should not come at the expense of responsible ocean stewardship. Our biomimetic approach ensures that our technology operates in harmony with nature, minimizing the environmental footprint of deep-sea operations while still providing the tools needed to ensure marine sovereignty.

Creating a Symbiotic Relationship with the Ocean

At Anomalous, we are not just building technology—we’re facilitating a new relationship between humanity and the ocean. One where exploration is not restricted by high costs and where human needs are balanced with the preservation of marine ecosystems. Our biomimetic design philosophy allows us to create tools that are both efficient and environmentally responsible, offering a future where exploration, industry, and conservation can coexist in harmony.

We envision a world where more nations, more communities, and more individuals have the ability to understand and engage with the ocean in meaningful ways. Whether it’s commercial ventures, scientific discovery, or national security, our goal is to empower people with the tools they need to unlock the ocean’s potential without compromising its future.

The Time to Act is Now

The oceans are our most valuable, untapped resource—and understanding them is critical to addressing the challenges of the 21st century, from climate change to global food security. At Anomalous, we are driven by the belief that the ocean must be accessible to all, not just to those with the deepest pockets.

By reducing the cost of exploration, providing adaptable technology, and embracing the global open-source community, we are making that vision a reality. It’s never been more important—or more possible—to explore, protect, and sustainably use the ocean’s resources. With Anomalous, the future of ocean exploration is within everyone’s reach.

The ocean belongs to all of us. And at Anomalous, we’re making sure everyone has the chance to explore it.

We’re not just building AUVs. We’re helping build the future of humanity’s relationship with the ocean. Will you join us in this mission?

How will we achieve all this?

The assumptions about how AUVs must operate and be built have undoubtedly led to incredible advances in ocean exploration. For decades, these systems have been instrumental in unlocking the mysteries of the deep. They remain a valuable tool in humanity's pursuit to understand the oceans.

But here’s the problem: despite all of the progress, the core principles behind AUV technology have largely stayed the same for decades. Incremental improvements have been made, but the fundamental limitations of cost, autonomy, and accessibility have held back a true leap forward.

At Anomalous, we asked ourselves a simple yet powerful question: Why? Why should the high cost of subsea operations continue to act as a barrier to science and human progress? Why should exploration of our oceans remain accessible only to those with deep pockets?

We realized something profound. We didn’t need to reinvent the wheel. Nature has already solved these challenges. So we looked to nature for inspiration.

We identified four key challenges that have been driving up the cost of operations at sea:

• Expensive engineering and costly materials

• Limited autonomy, leading to higher logistical expenses and shorter mission durations

• Custom hardware and proprietary electronics that inflate the price of development

• Closed-source software, which locks users into expensive licenses and specialized experts

We knew there was a better way—and we found it by thinking differently.

• For expensive engineering, we found our answer in the Mariana Snailfish, a creature that thrives in the crushing depths of the ocean without relying on heavy, costly structures.

• For autonomy, we took lessons from the Giant Manta Ray, one of the ocean’s most efficient swimmers, and applied its grace and energy efficiency to our propulsion systems.

• For hardware and electronics, we challenged the norm and discovered a way to use off-the-shelf components with some creative engineering, drastically cutting costs.

• For software, we embraced the open-source revolution by integrating the power of ROS2, freeing our users from expensive licensing fees while tapping into a global community of developers.

Each of these breakthroughs didn’t just address a technical problem—they created an opportunity to rethink subsea robotics from the ground up. We’ve dismantled the barriers to ocean exploration, making it more accessible, flexible, and affordable for everyone—from researchers and scientists to industries and even governments.

Want to know more? In the following sections, we’ll dive deeper into the specific technologies and design principles that power Anomalous—and how we’re changing the game for deep-sea exploration.