Nautilus Defense LLC’s first connection with the U.S. Navy took place before the company was founded, when Jim Owens had an opportunity to work on a maritime surveillance system designed to detect terrorists and pirates in Indonesian and Malaysian waterways.
Owens, a Warwick native, was hired for the $75 million project in 2007 as an independent contractor in Washington, D.C., before moving back to the Ocean State to form Nautilus in 2013. The Pawtucket company worked on the Indonesian project until about two years ago before moving on to other contracts with the Navy. Nautilus, which employs three people, works closely with the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, has contracts with the U.S. Air Force and is in negotiations with the U.S. Army. The company works with various materials to create military-grade textiles, and creates high-tech integrated systems for vehicles and other machines.
One of its latest projects conjures up comparisons to a superhero. Using genetically modified silk spun by silkworms, Nautilus is developing “engineered yarns” strong enough to stop ships that refuse to slow for law enforcement in the waters of Panama.
Its work with the Air Force exemplifies the potential for new technologies in the blue economy. The project, a system to monitor complicated machinery with many moving parts, “transitions into the Navy, into infrastructure, into offshore wind,” Owens said.
“While the Department of Defense is very often where new technologies begin, it’s not a good place for them to end,” he said. “It’s important that companies like us take those projects off the shelf and transition them into the commercial world.”