Sea Machines was selected among a limited group of companies to execute a live maritime autonomy vignette at Creative Disruptors in the Desert 2026 in La Quinta, California. 

Hosted by the Creative Defense Foundation in collaboration with AUVSI, the event convened senior Department of Defense leadership, acquisition executives, Congressional defense appropriators, and industry leaders to evaluate mature, deployable technologies shaping the future of American defense capability. 

Sea Machines’ role formed part of a multi-domain vignette integrating eight advanced autonomy and sensing companies into a unified mission narrative spanning land, air, and sea. 

A Live Indo-Pacific Autonomy Demonstration 

Within that broader scenario, Sea Machines executed a live distributed maritime operation connecting a forward-deployed unmanned surface vessel in the Philippines with operators in La Quinta trailing and prosecuting a suspicious contact outside Subic Bay, while stakeholders observed live in California. 

From within the United States, operators coordinated command of the vessel in real time as mission control was transitioned between ground stations in La Quinta, CA and Subic Bay. The SM300 software is also capable of “intercept” behavior, whereby operators can command the vessel to autonomously calculate and execute a converging course against a moving contact, dynamically adapting to target maneuvering and surrounding maritime traffic while maintaining collision avoidance and navigational compliance. 

Drop in Autonomy Kits  

The Sea Machines solution showcased is operationally ready and actively available for deployment. Designed and engineered by Sea Machines, the drop in autonomy kit provides end users a rapid capability to convert existing boats with Sea Machines tech within 10-20 hours. The pre-rigged kits reduce field engineering requirements.

The demonstration highlighted: 

• Secure remote supervisory control across long-distance links 

• Objective-based mission execution rather than direct teleoperation 

• Real-time perception, navigation, and collision avoidance 

• Immediate re-tasking with dynamic route recalculation 

• Scalable control of distributed unmanned maritime assets 

Why It Matters 

Operational vignettes such as those executed at Disruptors in the Desert provide government stakeholders with direct exposure to live systems operating within realistic mission contexts. These are not conceptual briefings. They are demonstrations of integrated capability under operational narrative. 

By controlling a forward-deployed vessel in the Indo-Pacific from within the United States, Sea Machines demonstrated a scalable model for distributed maritime operations. This approach expands operational reach, reduces risk to crewed platforms, and enables persistent presence without proportional manpower growth. 

As global maritime competition intensifies, American advantage depends on fielded, interoperable systems that are ready to deploy and scale. The autonomy demonstrated in La Quinta reflects a mature, operational capability engineered to support U.S. and allied maritime missions wherever distributed unmanned presence is required.