Whether coordinating search and rescue (SAR), drifting-mine response, or littoral patrol, mission success for Navies, Coast Guards, and defense agencies depends on knowing what the water is doing right now and in the hours ahead. The operators behind these missions require data that is precise enough for complex computations, accurate enough for the theater, and seamlessly integrated into the tools they already trust.
As uncrewed and autonomous systems take on more of this work, the demand for a precise, shared environmental picture that scales from a single vehicle to a coordinated swarm is only growing.
Search and Rescue
Using high resolution current forecasts can shrink SAR areas by up to 4x so teams cover a smaller region, in less time, with higher confidence.
High resolution current forecasts for faster SAR operations
95% of SAR missions (>100 per day) happen <20nm from shore where coarse global grids often miss the local jets and eddies that actually move people and debris.
Keep readingClose
Using our /drift endpoint
Search-and-rescue and recovery (SAR) missions depend on estimating where a person or object is likely to be hours after it was last seen. Those estimates inherit every error in the current field behind them.
Current Lab’s regional coastal forecasts resolve that finer circulation and power our server-side /drift endpoint on the Current Lab API: start from a last-known position and time, and the service steps the object forward with the local current (and a share of the wind when the object sits above the surface of the ocean).
Teams that already run drift inside their own SAR planner can pull the same high-resolution surface currents from our /gridded endpoint and keep their existing engine. Gridded data is available in GRIB2, NetCDF, or JSON formats.
Mine Countermeasures
Achieve a tighter search envelope when the job is to find mines, and a safer avoidance corridor when the priority is a ship maneuver plan that stays clear of them.
Example mine release using /drift endpoint
Drift prediction for MCM
Sea mines have been used in littoral conflicts for more than a century to deny ports, shipping lanes, and naval transit. Most modern fields rely on tethered (moored) mines or seabed mines. Free-floating drift mines are rarer and restricted under international law, but they still appear in contemporary conflict zones.
Keep readingClose
Using our /drift endpoint
Even without intentional drift mines, tethered and seabed contacts often move or disappear between successive countermeasure sweeps. Currents, poor initial positioning, or incomplete tracking of where they were laid can all explain the shift. When a last-known location is on the chart and the mine is no longer there, operators need a credible projection of where the hazard may have gone. Until clearance is complete, traffic still needs a safe route around the risk.
Current Lab’s regional coastal forecasts power our server-side /drift endpoint on the Current Lab API. Start from a last-known time and place, and the service steps the threat forward with the local current. That gives MCM teams a tighter search envelope when the job is to find the mine, and an avoidance corridor when the priority is a ship maneuver plan that stays clear of the drifting hazard. High-probability-safe water sits next to the search envelope, so planners are not left choosing between a stale chart mark and an unmarked lane.
Because these contacts sit at different depths (near-surface drift mines, moored mines on a tether, seabed mines near the bottom), the /gridded endpoint’s ocean_3d product helps show how currents change through the water column, not only at the surface.
Teams that already run drift or routing inside their own MCM or transit planner can pull high-resolution coastal currents from our /gridded endpoint on the Current Lab API and keep their existing engine. Where a last-known contact is enough, they can also call the server-side /drift endpoint and let Current Lab step the hazard forward on those fields. Gridded data is available in GRIB2, NetCDF, or JSON, so the integration stays in formats planners already know how to ingest.
Emergency Spill Response
Increase confidence across response teams with a high resolution release prediction for fast, accurate mitigation and emergency management.
Hazardous chemical spill prediction
Oil and hazardous-chemical releases in ports, harbor entrances, and enclosed basins force a fast call: which shoreline, intake, or traffic lane is at risk first. Wind matters, and for oil the substance itself changes as it weathers. Near-term where it goes is still dominated by coastal currents. Get those wrong, and the predicted envelope misses the places responders and emergency managers must protect first.
Keep readingClose
Using our /drift endpoint
Current Lab’s regional coastal forecasts replace the coarse global data most coastal trajectory tools usually rely on. Agencies and spill modelers can pull high-resolution surface currents from our /gridded endpoint on the Current Lab API (GRIB2, NetCDF, or JSON) and keep your existing plume model, or an enterprise hazard engine, in place. When rapid deployment is critical, our forward /drift endpoint instantly steps a release location and time across Current Lab currents (with a wind factor when the material sits high in the air). This bypasses the complex setup time of chemical weathering models, getting a highly accurate trajectory onto the incident map in seconds.
Response cells and DEM watch floors can follow the forecast in Current Map, or drop a time-enabled overlay into the GIS they already use through Web Map Services, so boom, intake, and traffic decisions line up with where the water is taking the release.
Command & Control
Ensure every team, from strategic planners to forward units, reference the same highly resolved picture of ocean conditions.
Common ocean operating picture
Operator confidence depends on planning against the environment they will actually face and seeing live conditions as they execute. However, complex littoral zones are exactly where global ocean models are weakest, creating a dangerous gap between the operation planned for and the live conditions encountered at the operational edge. Closing this gap requires high-resolution coastal data that can be deployed universally across the mission stack, ensuring that every team, from strategic planners to forward units, is referencing the same highly resolved environment.
Keep readingClose
Integrating our data into the common operating picture
The fastest path to a shared littoral layer is dropping our Web Map Services directly into your GIS or map-based applications. These time-enabled, WMTS surface-current overlays stream forecast and hindcast data with little to no custom development required. When a forward operations center operates in a denied or disconnected environment, portable versions (.mbtiles, GeoTIFF) of our data packages guarantee that planners and operators can continue working from the exact same regional model.
When a C2 or Common Operating Picture (COP) backend must compute routes or drift on the vectors themselves rather than just displaying them, the Current Lab API supplies the same regional grids as raw data. This ensures that the analytical algorithms calculating the mission and the visual overlays displayed to the operator stay locked onto one identical, high-resolution source.
For rapid briefings or exploration outside of standard GIS, Current Map provides instant access to the present hour or 48-hour forecasts.
Autonomous Systems
Extend the C2 layer across uncrewed vessels and systems so operations stay consistent across assets.
Ocean currents for uncrewed systems
Unmanned surface and undersea systems are taking on more of this littoral work. They face the same physics as manned platforms (transit, station-keeping, and search geometry all feel local current), but they need the environment as machine-readable input, not a briefing slide. If unmanned planners draw from a different source than the COP on the manned side, the force is no longer operating from one picture.
Keep readingClose
Integrating our data into the autonomy stack
Extend the C2 layer above into the autonomy stack: the same regional forecasts, delivered as gridded fields through the Current Lab API, feed USV and UUV planners and supervisory systems while human operators keep watching Current Map or the Web Map Services overlay already in the COP. Search and recovery patterns on unmanned platforms can reuse the same drift services used for manned SAR, so search logic stays consistent across crewed and uncrewed assets, and autonomy and the watch floor stop disagreeing about what the water is doing.
