AUV Connectivity Patents: Top Filers, Trends & White Space 2026
- 55 patent families total, with filing peaking at 12 in 2023 and no single year since holding that pace — this is a young, still-consolidating claim space rather than a mature one.
- China accounts for 27 of the tracked receiving-office filings, against 14 from the United States, so the acoustic and optical link claims most likely to collide with a new filing sit in Chinese-office prosecution.
- H04B and B63G together anchor the field (31 and 30 records respectively), while G05D control and B63C launch/recovery sit far behind at single digits — the connectivity layer is claimed far more heavily than the vehicle-integration layer around it.
Filing growth compares 2021 (5 records) with 2024 (3) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 55 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this patent set covers
This landscape tracks patent families at the intersection of autonomous and unmanned underwater vehicles and the wireless links that connect them: underwater acoustic communication, optical underwater links, vehicle telemetry, and subsea network architecture. The search combines vehicle-class terms (AUV, UUV) with connectivity terms in the title and claims, then filters to IPC classes covering underwater transmission (H04B13/02), general transmission systems, and naval vessel classes (B63G8).
Coverage runs from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 cut-off. Publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so the 2026 count of 3 and even the 2025 figures are undercounts of actual filing activity, not a genuine slowdown signal on their own.
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Filing trend and technology mix
Two views of the same 55 families: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how it splits across the IPC classes that define the connectivity stack versus the vehicle platform around it.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings rose from a single record in 2017 to a peak of 12 in 2023, passing through 5 at the 2022 midpoint. Activity since the peak has not sustained that rate, and given the ~18-month publication lag, the true 2024-2026 picture is still forming.
IPC composition
H04B (31 records) and B63G (30 records) dominate, confirming this is primarily a communications-and-naval-platform intersection. G01S (13) and H04W (11) show meaningful positioning and network-layer activity, while G05D control, H04L digital transmission, B63B vessel hulls, and B63C launch-and-recovery each sit at single-digit counts — thinner claim coverage relative to the core link technology.
Shares are the percentage of the 55 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Wireless Connectivity and IoT with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about autonomous underwater vehicle wireless connectivity and iot and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaThe patents shaping this space
GB2581091A — Guide cable based recovery apparatus for AUV
Filed by Hohai University, this record discloses an unmanned surface vehicle carrying a recovery device and guide-and-recovery control system, with an underwater acoustic transducer mounted on the surface vehicle hull for acoustic communication with the AUV during launch and recovery, plus a hydraulic telescopic rod for physical guide-cable handling.Published 2020-08-05.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CA3067573A1 | Target tracking systems and methods for uuv | 54 |
| 2 | WO2020082821A1 | 一种基于导向缆的无人船回收自主水下航行器装置及方法 | 48 |
| 3 | US20200180740A1 | Multiple Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) System | 43 |
| 4 | CN112960086A | 一种坐落式AUV水下对接平台 | 23 |
| 5 | CA3067575A1 | Self-learning autonomous navigation systems and methods for unmanned underwater vehicle | 20 |
| 6 | WO2018231273A1 | Multiple autonomous underwater vehicle system | 20 |
| 7 | CN112787920A | 面向海洋物联网的水声通信边缘计算时延和能耗优化方法 | 15 |
| 8 | CN110155281A | 一种AUV集群无人输送艇 | 15 |
| 9 | CN113037395A | 一种水上水下跨域无人装备协同作业方法 | 9 |
| 10 | JP2006332947A | Passive phase conjugation underwater acoustic communication method and system thereof | 9 |
Citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and skew toward older filings; treat them as a signal of prior-art weight, not of current commercial relevance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers mean for filing strategy
Three patterns stand out once the raw counts are read against filing dates and IPC splits.
Growth has plateaued, not compounded
Filings climbed from 1 in 2017 to a peak of 12 in 2023, passing through 5 at the 2022 midpoint. That is real early growth, but the flat-to-declining pattern since the peak — read alongside the 18-month publication lag — means this field has not yet shown a second wave of filing.
Prosecution risk concentrates in China
China's receiving office accounts for roughly half of all tracked filings, nearly double the United States count of 14. India, WIPO/PCT, Canada and the UK each contribute a handful. A freedom-to-operate check that skips Chinese-office prior art is checking the wrong half of the field.
The link layer is crowded; the control layer is not
H04B (transmission) and B63G (naval vessels) each carry 30+ records, while G05D (non-electric variable control) and B63C (launch and recovery) sit at single digits. Claims on the communication protocol itself face denser prior art than claims tying that link into vehicle control or recovery sequencing.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to autonomous underwater vehicle wireless connectivity and iot, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the activity has cooled
Recent-year momentum is thin across the board: most tracked assignees show zero filings in the latest year, and even the two most active academic filers report only a single family apiece.
Hohai University stays active on recovery systems
Hohai University, assignee of the representative GB2581091A filing on guide-cable AUV recovery, remains one of only two entities with a filing in the most recent tracked year, pointing to continued institutional interest in launch-and-recovery mechanics tied to acoustic links.
Harbin Engineering University holds steady at low volume
Harbin Engineering University also shows 1 filing in the latest year with flat year-over-year change, consistent with a research group maintaining a steady but modest filing cadence rather than scaling up.
Commercial filers show no recent activity
Seatrepid Deepsea LLC, alongside several university filers including Zhejiang University and the Beijing Institute of Aerospace Control Instruments, registers zero filings in the latest tracked year — a sign that recent activity, if any, has not yet published under the 18-month lag.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Hohai University | 1 | — |
| Harbin Engineering University | 1 | 0% |
| SEATREPID DEEPSEA LLC | 0 | — |
| Zhejiang University | 0 | — |
| Beijing Institute of Aerospace Control Instruments | 0 | — |
| Florida Atlantic University | 0 | — |
| SEATREPID INTERNATIONAL LLC | 0 | — |
| Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) | 0 | — |
Where to take this next
This landscape is a starting map, not a final answer on freedom to operate or on where to place the next filing.
Check the control-layer gap directly
G05D and B63C each carry under 10 records against 30+ in H04B and B63G. Before assuming this gap is real white space, run a targeted claims search on control-and-recovery integration language specifically.
Explore in Eureka →Track China-office prosecution separately
With 27 of 55 filings routed through China's receiving office, a China-specific prior-art and prosecution-status check should run ahead of any drafting decision in the acoustic or optical link space.
Run a China filing check in Eureka →Revisit after the publication lag clears
The 2024-2026 filing counts are structurally incomplete. Re-pull this landscape in 12-18 months to see whether the post-2023 plateau was real or an artifact of publication timing.
Set a landscape refresh in Eureka →Common questions on AUV connectivity patents
The most-cited record in this dataset is CA3067573A1, covering target tracking systems and methods for unmanned underwater vehicles, with 54 citations, followed by CA3067575A1 on self-learning autonomous navigation for the same vehicle class. US20200180740A1 covers a multiple-AUV system architecture. These citation counts reflect influence within the searched corpus and skew toward older filings, so they should be read as prior-art weight rather than a current market-leader ranking. A full freedom-to-operate check should still pull assignee-level filing volume alongside citation counts.
Filing activity rose from 1 family in 2017 to a peak of 12 in 2023, but the years since have not sustained that peak, giving a flat-to-declining trend at the 2022 midpoint of 5 filings. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the apparent slowdown in 2024-2026 is partly a data artifact rather than a confirmed drop in real filing activity. Treat the post-2023 numbers as provisional until later data cuts fill in.
China's receiving office accounts for 27 of the 55 tracked families, nearly double the United States at 14. India, WIPO/PCT filings, Canada and the United Kingdom make up the remainder in small numbers. Anyone assessing prosecution risk or planning a filing strategy in this space should weight a China-specific prior-art search heavily given this concentration.
The search string captures both underwater acoustic communication and optical underwater link claims, but the IPC breakdown shows H04B (general transmission, including underwater acoustic) far outweighing more specialized optical-link filings, with 31 records against thinner counts elsewhere. Acoustic communication remains the dominant claimed approach for AUV connectivity because it works over the longer ranges typical of subsea operation, while optical links appear more often in shorter-range, high-bandwidth docking or recovery scenarios. Optical-specific claim language is comparatively less crowded, which is worth checking directly if optical links are the intended filing target.
The clearest gap sits between the heavily claimed link layer (H04B at 31 records, B63G at 30) and the much thinner control-and-recovery layer (G05D at 9, B63C at 7). Sub-areas such as acoustic-to-optical handoff protocols, multi-AUV mesh routing, and recovery-phase telemetry error correction show up far less often than core transmission claims. A first claim in these adjacent branches — for example, tying a specific handoff trigger condition to link-quality telemetry — has more room to stand clear of existing prior art than a straight acoustic-modulation claim would.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.