A spherical autonomous sensor vessel for scientific ocean monitoring — water quality, salinity, contamination and temperature. Built on the SonaSphere platform.
SensaSphere is the scientific variant of the SonaSphere platform — the same spherical, autonomous vessel hull, reconfigured with a scientific sensor payload for water quality monitoring, contamination detection, salinity mapping, pH measurement, and temperature profiling. Where SonaSphere is dropped from the air for defence applications, SensaSphere is deployed from vessels of opportunity, RIBs, or shore — providing rapid, autonomous coverage of water bodies that fixed buoys and tethered probes cannot reach.
| Platform | Shared with SonaSphere — developing one accelerates the other. Common hull, autonomy stack, and Emrys Sensor Suite integration. |
| Problem solved | Water quality monitoring currently relies on expensive research vessels, fixed buoys with limited coverage, or manually-operated probes. None can rapidly survey large or dynamic areas autonomously. |
| Sensor payload | Water quality (pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity), salinity, contamination detection, temperature profiling, and configurable third-party sensor integration. |
| Variants | Subsurface AUV variant (SensaSphere Sub) and surface vessel variant (SensaSphere Surface) — both built on the same platform family. |
| Target markets | Plymouth Marine Laboratory, National Oceanography Centre, university marine research programmes, environmental agencies, aquaculture industry, offshore energy operators. |
| Competitive edge | No current commercial product offers a rapid-deploy, autonomous, spherical sensor vessel for area-wide water quality mapping. The gap between large research vessels and fixed buoys is entirely unaddressed. |
| Status | Concept paper in development. Plymouth Marine Laboratory MOU targeted Month 6. UKRI / Innovate UK funding route. |
| Revenue model | Scientific market sales from Year 2. UKRI / Innovate UK grants. Plymouth Marine Laboratory pilot project. |
SensaSphere and SonaSphere share the same core platform. Defence variant: air-deployed sonar AUV for Royal Navy and NATO. Scientific variant: autonomous sensor vessel for ocean monitoring and research. One platform. Two revenue streams. Development of either accelerates both.