“By all accounts, the prototype has demonstrated the goals to provide maritime domain awareness to a maritime customer using an unmanned surface vessel. ​

Open Ocean Robotics demonstrated that unmanned systems can be successfully employed by the USG, DoD, and other maritime entities to provide useful maritime domain awareness to its commanders. Particularly with regards to persistent monitoring of maritime traffic choke points, or harbors and port entrances, the DataXplorer provides a low observable platform to detect threats before they come close to manned assets or critical infrastructure. They can act as a buffer between the threat and people. In addition, they can also be used in operations to get closer to and collect information on adversaries without putting personnel at risk. ​

Any maritime customer, including but not limited to DoD, USCG, CBP, or NOAA could utilize Open Ocean Robotics’s DataXplorer to act as an unmanned vessel independently or to supplement any existing maritime domain awareness system. Use cases include but are not limited to maritime security (threat identification), counter-smuggling (persistent presence, particularly of high traffic areas), and counter-illegal fishing operations (long endurance patrol of protected fishing areas, collecting evidence of and identifying vessels engaged in illegal fishing).” - Michael Nordhausen, CDR, USCG ​