A wide front maw
is designed to take in floating and drifting plastic as the drone moves just below the surface, or skims the surface itself in calm water.
How every Nautilus is designed to work
Eat the plastic. Let the fish go. Map the water.
Sonar gates
on every intake will sense anything alive and swimming. A fish, turtle or dolphin is let out the side before anything is compacted.
Slow, gentle intake
no pumps and no blades: a slow intake and a rinse-back screen return water, weed and small drifting life to the sea.
The bag-chain
plastic fills a long tube that is sealed and cut into bales: up the tether to the boat in Phase One, floating up with a GPS tag in later phases. The drone keeps working instead of going home to empty.
Ocean data
every Nautilus will measure temperature, salinity and plastic density as it travels, building live maps of where plastic gathers.
Ghost nets
lost nets keep killing for years. The Nautilus maps them with sonar below the surface and marks them for removal crews, rather than trying to swallow them.
From the ocean to the recycler
The drone never goes home to empty.
Like a self-cleaning litter box, the Nautilus is designed to pack its catch into a continuous tube that is heat-sealed and cut into bales. In Phase One the bales go straight up the tether to the support boat; from Phase Two on, full bales float up wearing a GPS tag and the ship's crane lifts them aboard. No bale is ever left adrift. Ashore they go to a recycling partner where the plastic can be recycled, and are disposed of properly where it cannot.
Two ways to work
Below the surface, or skimming it.
The same drone is designed to change its trim. Below the surface it works under the chop, away from boat traffic. Trimmed up, its maw rides the waterline to sweep up bottles, foam and floating slicks.
Sea life first
Plastic out. Everything alive stays in the sea.
The fair criticism of ocean cleanup is that it catches living things along with the plastic. We take that seriously. Animals that swim are sensed by sonar and let out through a side gate. For life that drifts and cannot swim away, the answer is not a gadget but how the drone is built and where and when it works.
Slow intake, no pumps
While collecting, the drone moves slowly (about 0.3 knot), so water enters the maw slower than a small fish can swim, through a passive scoop and a slow belt. Nothing is pumped or chopped.
Mesh sized for plastic
Screens of 5 to 10 mm and more keep the plastic and let plankton, eggs and larvae pass straight through.
Hold, rinse, return
Before anything is compacted the catch waits in a holding bay, is rinsed with seawater, and a live-return chute sends animals back out.
Cameras that pause
A forward camera spots jellyfish and floating animals such as by-the-wind sailors, and pauses the intake and steers around them.
Right place, right time
Daylight work by default, when far fewer drifting animals are at the surface, and no skimming of sargassum mats. Harbors, river mouths and ghost nets first, where floating life is sparse.
Count and publish
Every animal returned is logged on camera, and the numbers are published. Our critics should be able to check our work.
Why not an electric field? Electric fish barriers only work on animals that can feel the field and swim away. Plankton, eggs and jellyfish drift, so they would be carried in anyway, and electric fields can harm eggs and larvae. Seawater also conducts so well that a useful field would drain the battery. Sonar, lights and a slow intake do the job better.
A second mission
Every mile cleaned is a mile measured.
The Nautilus will travel through the top layer of the ocean anyway, so it can measure it: temperature, salinity, water quality and, above all, where plastic gathers and how much there is.
Today most plastic counts come from nets towed behind research boats and sorted in a lab. A Nautilus fleet would map it continuously, and that data is useful to universities, fisheries and science programs.
- Plastic density mapswhere it gathers, season by season
- Water conditionstemperature and salinity along every track
- Ghost-net locationslogged for removal crews and fishermen
- Open bycatch logevery animal returned, counted and published
Good company
Others are working on parts of the problem. We want to work with them.
We looked at what exists today. Several excellent projects tackle pieces of ocean plastic; we found no underwater drone that collects drifting plastic the way the Nautilus would.
| Project | What it does |
|---|---|
| The Ocean Cleanup | Large surface barriers towed through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, plus river Interceptors. |
| Mr. Trash Wheel (Baltimore) | Solar- and water-powered wheels that catch trash at river mouths. |
| Clearbot, WasteShark | Small surface boats that skim trash in harbors. |
| SeaClear (EU) | A robot team that picks litter off the seafloor; still in trials. |
| Ghost-gear groups | Global Ghost Gear Initiative, Healthy Seas and others find and remove lost nets, mostly with divers. |
| Ocean-data drones | Saildrones and gliders stay out for months collecting data, but collect no plastic. |
- Designed to work below the surface, under the chop and away from boat traffic, and to skim the surface when that's better.
- Seals its catch into bales, so it keeps working instead of going home to empty.
- Sonar gates and a slow, gentle intake aimed squarely at the field's biggest criticism: harming sea life.
- Finds and maps ghost nets with sonar, so removal crews know exactly where to go.
- Doubles as an ocean-data platform.