CoveEmail the founders

Ocean robots shouldn’t need a ship to recharge.

Cove is a floating depot that turns wave motion into power and lets autonomous underwater vehicles dock, recharge, and go back to work. No crew, no vessel, no downtime.

Email the foundersWhere we are today
CAD model of the Cove five-bay prototype: a long floating frame holding five curved rocking panels, each in its own bay.
Fig. 1Five-bay prototype module, CAD, 2026. Each bay holds a curved panel on a pivot; each pivot drives a generator.1Curved rocking panel, one per bay2Floating ladder frame

Schematic simulation, not to scale

The ship is the bottleneck.

Autonomous underwater vehicles survey pipelines, map the seafloor, and monitor the ocean. They run on batteries that last a day or two. Then a crewed ship has to find them, haul them out, and recharge them.

Endurance
1 to 2 days

A small survey AUV carries roughly 4 to 5 kWh. When it is gone, the mission ends whether the job is done or not.

Energy on board
4 to 5 kWh

About what a home battery holds. It has to cover propulsion, sensors, and the trip back.

Dominant cost
The ship

Vessel time, crew, and fuel dominate the cost of running AUVs. The robot is cheap; tending it is not.

Charging at sea
None

There is no infrastructure for robots to recharge unattended. Every operator solves it the same expensive way.

How Cove works

A wide floating frame with rows of hinged panels. Waves rock the panels; the panels turn generators; the generators fill a battery bank; the battery charges docked vehicles.

rocking panelwavegearbox + generatorbattery banksheltered dock, inductive charging

Cross-section of one bay. Schematic, not to scale.

  1. Waves rock the panels

    Each bay holds a curved panel on a pivot. Passing waves swing it back and forth.

  2. Panels drive generators

    The pivot turns a gearbox and generator. Many small units, not one big one, so the platform keeps working if one fails.

  3. Power goes to a battery bank

    Energy is stored on the platform, so charging does not depend on the sea state at that moment.

  4. AUVs dock and recharge

    Vehicles dock in a sheltered bay using an industry-standard inductive connector, offload data, and leave on a full charge.

The wave-energy physics here is well established; what is new is packaging it as a charging depot for robots. Power figures we quote are screening estimates from a physics model run on real Gulf of Mexico wave data, not measurements.

Sized against real sea states.

Our energy model runs on three years of NOAA buoy records from station 42035, twenty-two nautical miles east of Galveston. The Gulf is not the North Sea: typical waves are under a metre. The design has to earn its keep in ordinary conditions, not in storms.

  • 0.82 mMean significant wave height
  • 1.40 m90th percentile
  • 5.45 mLargest recorded
  • 33,668Hourly observations
Monthly mean of hourly significant wave height, NDBC station 42035 (Galveston, TX (22 NM east of Galveston), 29.235° N 94.41° W), 2023 to 2025. Months with no bar are buoy outages in the NDBC record, not calm seas. Source: NOAA NDBC
Show as table
MonthMean (m)90th pct (m)Max (m)Observations
Jan 2023no data (buoy outage)
Feb 2023no data (buoy outage)
Mar 20230.981.361.60283
Apr 20231.011.472.471,434
May 20230.641.161.841,476
Jun 20230.761.231.681,438
Jul 20230.650.981.391,487
Aug 20230.701.112.531,482
Sep 20230.550.901.331,422
Oct 20230.921.522.091,150
Nov 2023no data (buoy outage)
Dec 2023no data (buoy outage)
Jan 2024no data (buoy outage)
Feb 2024no data (buoy outage)
Mar 2024no data (buoy outage)
Apr 2024no data (buoy outage)
May 20241.021.372.27959
Jun 20241.001.863.191,440
Jul 20240.761.055.451,460
Aug 20240.460.781.291,486
Sep 20240.751.692.751,433
Oct 20240.871.442.401,487
Nov 20241.071.762.511,437
Dec 20240.981.461.821,488
Jan 20251.091.713.371,468
Feb 20250.841.542.121,342
Mar 20250.891.492.381,487
Apr 20251.031.782.261,428
May 20251.051.662.371,483
Jun 20250.871.141.831,437
Jul 20250.680.921.391,484
Aug 20250.430.711.291,478
Sep 20250.620.911.61699
Oct 2025no data (buoy outage)
Nov 2025no data (buoy outage)
Dec 2025no data (buoy outage)

Early. Here is exactly where.

We would rather you know the stage than guess it. This log is the whole story so far.

  1. DoneArchitecture chosenFloating ladder frame. Five-bay prototype module modelled in CAD.
  2. DoneEnergy modelBuilt on three years of NDBC buoy records off Galveston. Outputs are screening estimates, not measurements.
  3. Oct 2026Good Bull Pitch winnerTexas A&M McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship.
  4. NowAdvisorsIn conversation with marine robotics labs at APL-UW and Oregon State.
  5. NextSingle-bay bench rigThen a five-bay tank test.
  6. StagePre-revenue, pre-seedStudent-founded at Texas A&M University.

Three undergraduates at Texas A&M.

Built in College Station, Texas

  • Siddharth Seshampally

    Co-founder · Oceanography

    Product, physics, and customer conversations.

  • Aarya Bookseller

    Co-founder · Computer science, with physics and statistics minors

    Software and controls.

  • Salvador Magaynes

    Co-founder · Mechatronics

    Mechanical design and electronics.

Tell us what a cut-short mission costs you.

If you operate AUVs, run a marine robotics lab, or work on offshore infrastructure, we would like to hear how you recharge today and what it costs. A reply from you shapes what we build next.

Email the founderssiddharth.ieeja@gmail.com