HYDRO-01 · Prototype
Small vessel,
big questions.
HYDRO-01 is an experimental platform that has sailed the open sea (North Atlantic campaign, 2026) to test autonomous navigation, communications, energy management, equipment resilience and remote operations in real conditions. Every hour it sails produces real-world data — the data that prepares L'Hydronaute and its exoskeleton, HYDRO-02.
North Atlantic campaign — 2026 · HYDRO-01
Drag to rotate — HYDRO-01’s voyage across the North Atlantic.
- Completed Brittany → Denmark
- Completed Denmark → Faroe Islands
- Field-tested · 2026 Faroe Islands
- Under consideration Faroe → Iceland
Why the North Atlantic?
The near-constant light of the northern summer
At high latitudes, summer days offer almost continuous daylight. It is an ideal test bench for measuring real solar yield — panels, batteries, the whole energy chain — under conditions few laboratories can reproduce.
Listening to the ocean as it is
HYDRO-01 deploys acoustic recorders to capture the real marine soundscape: ambient noise, shipping traffic, the presence of life. These recordings build a baseline for understanding the sound impact of navigation — and for measuring, tomorrow, the relative silence of L'Hydronaute.
Validate before scaling
Autonomous navigation, seakeeping, energy endurance: everything validated at small scale on HYDRO-01 directly informs the design of L'Hydronaute and the HYDRO-02 modular exoskeleton. The prototype de-risks — the demonstrator carries the public.