Washington: A Texas-based company co-founded by Indian-American Vibhav Altekar developed the US Navy drone boat, which was used to rescue the pilot and co-pilot of an Apache helicopter that was shot down by Iranian Who Is Vibhav Altekar? Know More About Indian-Origin Engineer Who Contributed To Drone Boat Used By US To Rescue Apache Pilots near the Strait of Hormuz.
This was the first of its kind military operation by the US in which an autonomous surface vessel, remotely piloted by a human operator, was used to recover personnel at sea.
As per an NDTV report, the US armed forces have been using the drone boat Corsair, developed by Saronic Technologies, for quite some time.
The 24-foot-long Corsair runs on diesel fuel and can travel at speeds of up to 35 knots and has a range of more than 1,000 nautical miles. It is reportedly powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and can carry a load of up to 1,000 pounds.
The Corsair is part of the US Navy’s Task Force 59 — which oversees uncrewed vessels and other drones powered by AI — under the Pentagon’s push to expand unmanned vehicles alongside traditional assets.
The LinkedIn profile of Saronic Technologies says that it has a USD 392 million production contract with the US Navy for autonomous surface vessels. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, the company was founded in September 2022 by Dino Mavrookas, who was a member of the Navy SEALs for 11 years, and three others, including Altekar. The other co-founders are Doug Lambert and Rob Lehman.
The Indian-origin co-founder Altekar is the chief technology officer with Saronic. He studied electrical engineering at the University of California. Altekar drives the development of the company’s autonomous systems and software architecture, according to his profile on the company’s website.
Altekar leads Forward Deployed Engineering, Product, and Special Programs as well as Software, working with cross-disciplinary teams spanning perception, navigation, machine learning, command and control, and systems integration, the website says.
Altekar is a highly accomplished perception engineer with expertise in the field of autonomous systems and maritime technology. He has spent a large part of his career in industry, driving advancements in US Department of Defence technology.
He was one of the earliest engineers at Anduril and led engineering efforts across multiple programmes, including the Royal Australian Navy’s Ghost Shark drone submarine.
