Oshen Built the First Ocean Robot to Collect Data in a Category 5 Hurricane

The ocean has long remained one of Earth’s final frontiers, with vast stretches of water still shrouded in mystery. Understanding hurricane behavior requires real-time data from the most dangerous environments on the planet, yet collecting that information has proven extraordinarily difficult. Oshen, a UK-based robotics company, has shattered this barrier by deploying the first autonomous ocean robots to successfully collect data from inside a Category 5 hurricane—a technological achievement that promises to revolutionize hurricane forecasting and ocean research.[1][2]

The Vision Behind Oshen

The story of Oshen begins with Anahita Laverack, who initially envisioned a career in aerospace engineering.[1] However, her trajectory changed after participating in an autonomous robotics competition, which sparked her interest in creating fleets of robots capable of gathering ocean data.[1] What started as an ambitious dream evolved into something far more practical when Laverack realized a critical problem: researchers and defense organizations lacked reliable ocean data to understand weather patterns and oceanic conditions.[2]

Laverack began attending conferences like Oceanology International, expecting to find existing solutions for ocean data collection. Instead, she discovered that no one had developed an effective method yet—and more importantly, potential customers were willing to pay for this data.[2] This realization became the foundation for Oshen, which Laverack founded alongside Ciaran Dowds, an electrical engineer, in April 2022.[2]

Engineering the Impossible

Creating autonomous ocean robots that could survive harsh marine environments while remaining affordable and technologically advanced proved extraordinarily challenging. The C-Stars, Oshen’s flagship autonomous micro-robots, needed to achieve three critical objectives simultaneously: be mass-deployable, remain cost-effective, and operate independently for extended periods while collecting sophisticated data.[2]

The development process required two years of intensive iteration, with the team testing prototypes both on shore and immediately deploying them to the ocean.[2] Laverack explained that scaling down existing larger robots simply wouldn’t work—the C-Stars needed to be purpose-built from the ground up. The testing phase presented unexpected obstacles, particularly during winter storm deployments in the UK, which Laverack described cryptically as involving “some interesting events” that she preferred not to elaborate on.[2]

The breakthrough came from Oshen’s ability to balance all three design requirements simultaneously. While many competitors had successfully achieved two of the three objectives, Oshen’s comprehensive approach began attracting attention from defense and government organizations.[2]

NOAA’s Interest and the Hurricane Humberto Mission

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) first contacted Oshen two years prior to 2025, but the technology wasn’t yet ready for reliable deployment.[1] After witnessing Oshen’s successful winter storm operations in the UK, NOAA reached out again just two months before the 2025 hurricane season.[1] This time, the company was prepared.

In a rapid mobilization effort, Oshen assembled and deployed over 15 C-Stars for NOAA’s hurricane data collection initiative.[1] Five of these robots were positioned near the U.S. Virgin Islands in the path of Hurricane Humberto, which was predicted to be a major storm.[1][2]

The team initially expected the robots to collect data only as the hurricane approached. What happened next exceeded all expectations. Three of the five C-Stars survived the entire Category 5 hurricane—despite losing some components—and continuously gathered data throughout the storm, becoming the first ocean robots ever to collect data through a Category 5 hurricane.[1][2]

Historic Data Collection

On September 28, 2025, one of the C-Stars made history by becoming the smallest uncrewed surface vehicle to capture and transmit data from inside a Category 5 hurricane’s eyewall.[3] Two additional C-Stars penetrated Hurricane Humberto while it was a Category 4 storm later that same day.[3] The three robots, deployed at approximately 12-hour intervals, collected real-time data that was transmitted to NOAA’s National Hurricane Center and the Global Telecommunications System to inform forecasters worldwide.[3]

Greg Foltz, an oceanographer at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Lab, emphasized the significance of this achievement: “The C-Stars collected valuable data from the strongest part of Hurricane Humberto and successfully transmitted it in near-real-time. This opens up the possibility of more routine use of C-Stars for hurricane data collection in the future in support of hurricane research and forecasting.”[3]

The Future of Ocean Robotics

The success of the Hurricane Humberto mission has transformed Oshen’s trajectory. The company has relocated to Plymouth, England, a hub for marine technology innovators, and has begun securing contracts with government, meteorological, and defense organizations.[1][2] Anahita Laverack announced plans to raise venture capital to meet the rapidly increasing demand for their services.[1]

This achievement represents more than just a technological milestone—it signals a new era in hurricane research and ocean monitoring. By deploying low-cost, autonomous sensors in swarms, researchers can now gather persistent data over wide areas during the most intense weather events, fundamentally improving our understanding of hurricanes and our ability to predict their behavior. Oshen’s C-Stars have proven that the ocean’s most dangerous secrets are no longer beyond our reach.

Original source: TechCrunch – Oshen built the first ocean robot to collect data in a Category 5 hurricane