Justin Manley

About

Justin Manley is a pioneering researcher and engineer whose career has centered on the development and application of unmanned maritime vehicles (UMVs) and autonomous ocean systems. His work spans subsea robotics, uncrewed surface vehicles, and marine environmental monitoring, placing him at the forefront of a technological revolution in ocean exploration and observation. Manley's most influential contribution examines the commercial and technical evolution of unmanned maritime vehicles over two decades, tracing transformative advances from early U.S. Navy-funded research to modern autonomous platforms. His work on the Aquanaut robot (40 citations) demonstrated how autonomous systems could replace human divers in hazardous subsea inspection and intervention tasks, improving both safety and operational depth. He also contributed meaningfully to ocean climate science through his collaboration with NOAA and Liquid Robotics, integrating sensor suites onto wave-powered vehicles to monitor open-ocean carbon parameters over vast geographic scales. Manley's research has extended to coral reef conservation and passive acoustic monitoring, reflecting a commitment to applying autonomous systems toward pressing environmental challenges. Collectively, his publications have accumulated over 110 citations, reflecting their growing influence across marine robotics, oceanography, and ocean technology policy. His body of work serves as an essential reference for researchers and engineers designing the next generation of autonomous ocean platforms.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   Aquanaut: A New Tool for Subsea Inspection and Intervention

   40 citations · 2018
2. 2
   Unmanned Maritime Vehicles, 20 years of commercial and technical evolution

   30 citations · 2016
3. 3
   An autonomous mobile platform for underway surface carbon measurements in open-ocean and coastal waters

   23 citations · 2009
4. 4
   Uncrewed Maritime Systems for Coral Reef Conservation

   10 citations · 2020
5. 5
   Ten years of wave glider operations: A persistent effort

   5 citations · 2017
6. 6
   Research to operations: Evaluating unmanned surface vehicles

   4 citations · 2016
7. 7
   A New Approach to Deploy Passive Acoustic Monitoring Systems in Autonomous Robotics

   2 citations · 2023

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links