Dor Raviv spent much of his childhood on yachts, sailing and traveling around the world with his family. Yarden Gross was born into a family that ran a business taking visitors on tourist boats around the Sea of Galilee in the north of Israel.

The two founders met and became friends during their military service in the Israeli Navy. Raviv served as a maritime navigation instructor and worked on a project for unmanned vessels, and Gross was a course instructor.

Then their paths diverged. At the age of 30, Raviv, an electrical engineer, and Gross, an entrepreneur, met again by chance and decided to turn their deep-rooted knowledge of the sea and tech experience into fulfilling a dream: the development of an autonomous system for navigating commercial ships and navy vessels in congested waters, similar to hazard-avoidance systems being pioneered for landlubbers in cars.

The two naval tech experts founded Orca AI in 2018, aiming to use artificial intelligence to make the high seas safer. Their autonomous maritime navigation platform aims to steer ships clear of various threats, from fellow seafarers to missiles or bridges, securing an increasingly crowded and always perilous channel for global trade.

“As more than 90 percent of all commerce is transported on board large commercial ships, we aim to make maritime commerce more safe, sustainable and secure for the entirety of the supply chain,” Raviv told The Times of Israel. “We have seen the fragility [of maritime trade routes] most recently with Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacking ships in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal blockade a few years ago.”

Earlier this month, the startup launched a new onboard system called Co-Captain, which the firm describes as “Waze of the Seas.” The system enables real-time sea condition data-sharing between vessels on traffic, weather conditions, and other disruptions to help crews anticipate hazards early and navigate risks in complex waters.

“We took inspiration from our day-to-day life using Google Maps and Waze, although in the maritime industry there are different types of events and routes that if you had prior acquired knowledge of, such as low-visibility conditions, you could quickly adjust your route,” said Raviv, who serves as Orca’s CTO. “In the maritime world, ships do not communicate with each another........

© The Times of Israel