AquaMesh
Autonomous, persistent cleanup for dynamic ocean environments. A swarm of cooperating systems built for the open sea.
Plastic in the open ocean is distributed, not concentrated.
Marine debris doesn't gather in tidy islands. It drifts in patchy, dynamic fields across thousands of kilometers — heterogeneous in size, shape, and buoyancy. The largest mass sits in macroplastics and ghost nets; the largest count sits in fragments too small to chase. Both problems live in the same water.
Each current method solves one piece — none solve the whole.
River interception
Highly effective at preventing future ocean pollution. Does not address legacy debris already offshore.
Single offshore systems
Capable in narrow conditions. Limited adaptability to spatially dynamic debris fields. Service-intensive.
Harbor / lake robots
Excellent in sheltered conditions. Not built for offshore survivability or scale.
Scale mismatch is the recurring failure. A single device facing a planetary-scale, dynamic field is structurally outmatched — regardless of how well it performs locally.
Distributed problems
require distributed solutions.
The ocean is not a static system. A static device cannot track a moving field. A swarm can — partitioning area, sharing observations, converging on patches as they appear, and dispersing again when they don't.
Four cooperating layers, one mesh.
AquaMesh is a hierarchical remediation network. Each layer has a narrow mandate and well-defined constraints. Together they form an adaptive operational fabric.
Macroplastic Recovery
Large, durable collectors capture ghost nets and macroplastics. Operating semi-passively with currents, they target the highest-mass fraction first — the source of most ecological damage.
- ·sea-state survival ≥ S5
- ·non-fragmenting capture
- ·scheduled offload cycles
A continuous cycle, not a campaign.
Cleanup is not a single event. AquaMesh operates in iterative cycles, with verification and reassessment built into the loop itself.
Continuous cycle · the drone never stops
Watch the swarm behave.
Live simulations of swarm behavior and strategy comparison. Adjust parameters and observe how distributed coordination changes coverage and recovery.
SIM_A · agent behavior
Hover any agent to inspect its current task and target distance. Lines indicate active pursuit.
SIM_B · strategy comparison
Both systems initializing — debris field seeded with four discrete patches.
Constraints define the design.
AquaMesh is built from the constraints inward. These are the physical and operational limits the system must respect.
Energy
Solar is supplemental, never sufficient. Endurance is power-bound.
Comms
Intermittent satellite links demand high autonomy and tolerant protocols.
Mechanics
Debris is irregular, deformable, entangling. Capture must avoid jamming and fragmentation.
Sea state
Wave loading and current variability dictate hull form, mooring, and station-keeping.
Corrosion & UV
Materials degrade rapidly without continuous service intervals.
Biofouling
Sensors and intakes drift from spec within weeks if untreated.
The cleanup must not become the problem.
Surface ecosystems are real. Bycatch is real. AquaMesh treats environmental safety as a primary design constraint, not a downstream concern.
"Do not solve one problem by creating another."
Neuston layer
The thin film of life at the ocean surface — siphonophores, eggs, larvae. Capture mechanisms must avoid harvesting it alongside debris.
Bycatch risk
Ghost gear is itself a bycatch generator. Recovery operations must distinguish entangled life and prioritize release pathways.
Redistribution
Poorly designed systems fragment macroplastic into microplastic. Capture must preserve debris integrity until offload.
Every capture mechanism, every sweep pattern, every deployment cycle is evaluated against the surface ecosystem first. A cleanup system that harms the neuston layer is not a cleanup system — it is a different kind of damage.
Progressive validation, not full-scale leaps.
Each phase must demonstrate measurable success before the next begins. Real-world data drives every gate.
Controlled Testing
Tank and harbor trials. Sensor calibration, capture mechanism iteration, neuston-impact baselines.
Coastal Deployment
Sheltered-water deployments. Multi-unit coordination, biofouling endurance, full operational loop.
Offshore Trials
Open-ocean pilots adjacent to convergence zones. Survivability across sea states, satellite ops cadence.
Scaled System
Persistent operation in subtropical gyres. Partner-operated logistics. Measurable mass reduction.
Grounded. Buildable. Modular.
A single research-grade prototype lands inside a small-grant budget. The architecture scales horizontally — every additional unit shares the same bill of materials and software stack.
Excludes researcher time and offshore deployment overheads. Phase-1 targets harbor and sheltered-water trials.
The prototype is one node of many. Marginal unit cost falls with volume; a fleet of 50 shares logistics, software updates, and service infrastructure across the same fixed overhead.
The ocean is not a static system.
Effective cleanup must be dynamic,
adaptive, and persistent.
Help bring AquaMesh
to life.
AquaMesh is an open research initiative. We're looking for collaborators in marine engineering, robotics, ML, and oceanography — and for institutional partners to host trials.