BIUTOPIC

HYDRO-01 · Prototype

Small vessel,
big questions.

HYDRO-01 is the first prototype of the BIUTOPIC platform: a small-scale autonomous vessel, deployed right now in the North Atlantic. Every hour it sails produces real-world data — the data that prepares HYDRO-02, L'Hydronaute.

The BIUTOPIC team crouched around HYDRO-01 and a laptop, in a Faroe Islands valley streaked with waterfalls
HYDRO-01 pre-sortie configuration — Faroe Islands, North Atlantic.
Mounting HYDRO-01's solar panel on a fjord shore, cliffs and waterfalls behind
Mounting the solar panel.
Two team members carry HYDRO-01 into the fjord water for launch
Launching into the fjord. Photo: @aaron_gekoski
The BIUTOPIC team standing behind HYDRO-01 on a slipway, loch and hills behind
The deployment team.

Expedition log · HYDRO-01

Drag to rotate — HYDRO-01’s voyage across the North Atlantic.

  1. Completed Brittany → Denmark
  2. Completed Denmark → Faroe Islands
  3. Current position Faroe Islands
  4. Up next Faroe → Iceland

Why the North Atlantic?

01

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.

02

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 HYDRO-02.

03

Validate before scaling

Autonomous navigation, seakeeping, energy endurance: everything validated at small scale on HYDRO-01 directly informs the design of HYDRO-02 and the modular exoskeleton. The prototype de-risks — the demonstrator carries the public.

HYDRO-02 — L'Hydronaute — is the next chapter: the first public demonstrator, on the Erdre, in Nantes.

Pre-book L'Hydronaute