Tiny Ocean Robots Survive Category 5 Hurricane Humberto

Three tiny robots smaller than most drones just survived the full fury of Hurricane Humberto while sending back data the entire time.

Anahita Laverack dreamed of becoming an aerospace engineer, but a failed ocean robotics challenge in 2021 changed everything. When her autonomous micro-robot couldn't cross the Atlantic, she discovered why: nobody had enough ocean data to predict conditions accurately.

At conference after conference, Laverack found scientists and organizations desperate for this missing information. Instead of finding existing data sources, she found customers willing to pay for someone to solve the problem.

So she and electrical engineer Ciaran Dowds started Oshen in April 2022 with a bold plan. They pooled their savings, bought a 25-foot sailboat, lived at the cheapest marina in the United Kingdom, and turned their vessel into a floating test lab.

For two years, they built and tested their C-Star robots in every condition imaginable. Summer testing was manageable, but winter storms pushed both the technology and the founders to their limits, sending them into dangerous waters most small sailboats should avoid.

The challenge wasn't just making robots that worked. The bots needed to be cheap enough to deploy in swarms, tough enough to survive months at sea, and smart enough to operate independently for 100 days straight.

NOAA first contacted Oshen two years ago, but Laverack knew the technology wasn't ready yet. After successful deployments in brutal U.K. winter storms, the organization called again just two months before the 2025 hurricane season.

Oshen rapidly built 15 C-Stars and deployed five near the U.S. Virgin Islands in Hurricane Humberto's predicted path. The team expected the bots would only collect pre-storm data before being destroyed.

Instead, three robots weathered the entire Category 5 hurricane and kept transmitting information throughout. Despite losing a few parts to 160-plus mile per hour winds, they survived conditions that would obliterate most ocean equipment.

The Ripple Effect

This breakthrough gives meteorologists unprecedented data from inside the most dangerous storms on Earth. Better hurricane data means better predictions, which means more time for coastal communities to evacuate and prepare.

The company now operates from Plymouth, England's marine tech hub, with contracts from NOAA, the U.K. government, and defense organizations. Oshen plans to raise venture capital soon to meet surging demand for both weather monitoring and defense applications.

From a cramped sailboat to storm-surviving robots, Laverack and Dowds proved that the best solutions sometimes come from people willing to weather a few storms themselves.