Member Spotlight | 10 January 2023
In an effort to raise awareness to NAMC member capabilities within the consortium, NAMC launched the member spotlight last year, showcasing an organization from the capability areas identified via the GVS OTA.
Moving forward, we will do a standalone company spotlight twice a month. With over 500+ members, we encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity and submit your company's information via the link below. There are a lot of exciting projects this fiscal year, and the spotlights help raise awareness to your company capabilities.
If you have any questions please email us at Click here to show email address.
Pliant Energy Systems LLC
POC: Benjamin Filardo | Click here to show email address
Company Profiles: Website | LinkedIn | NAMC Profile
Technology Objective Area: Platforms (PLA)
HQ: Brooklyn, New York
Organization Type: Nontraditional small business
Capability Areas: Marine, autonomy, amphibious, airship, UUV, USV, nonlinear, fluid transducer, hydropower, hydrokinetic, stealth
Q: What capability gaps are you able to fill and which industry colleagues would you like to know about them?
A: We are developing a multi-domain ROV/AUV that can travel under water, on the surface of water, across mud and sand, and across solid ice. These abilities have been demonstrated with our first prototype vehicle, Velox, and are currently being developed further with our C-Ray vehicle.
No swapping of components or other intervention is needed for the vehicle to transition from one domain to another, because mobility through all domains is achieved with a single traveling wave transducer.
With successful completion of C-Ray development, we intend to apply our core technology to other platforms. For example, to create a quiet, highly maneuverable airship with vertical takeoff and landing.
Q: What do you consider your organization’s differentiator?
A: What is most unusual about Pliant Energy Systems is that we appear to have a mini engineering paradigm all to ourselves, to the best of our knowledge. As a commercial entity we need to develop a first minimum viable product to prove the value of our technological approach and core technology. This we are doing through C-Ray, our amphibious ROV/AUV. There are many other potential applications of our core technology and knowhow, including for energy harnessing and electricity generation.
Q: Which Government Customer would you like to pitch your organization to?
A: We would like to pitch our lighter-than-air vehicle concept to the US Air Force and Marine Corps. Enthusiasm for airship development has come and gone in small waves since the Hindenburg disaster. There seem to be no obvious breakthrough craft that government or industry are willing to get behind in a big way, for a variety of reasons.
We would like to discuss whether a quiet vehicle (no props) with VTOL, and very high agility compared to propeller-driven airships, could change that.