Kraken Robotics has completed a Robotics as a Service (RaaS) contract with the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), for testing Kraken’s ultra-high-resolution survey equipment.
This $0.5 million contract was funded under the government of Canada’s Innovative Solutions Canada program, and the testing department for this service offering was the RCN’s Fleet Diving Unit Atlantic (FDU-A) based in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The RCN has a mandate to develop and maintain an advanced sonar imaging and data storage capability for all three coasts, and to deploy this capability to national and international areas of interest.
Throughout the course of the contract, Kraken deployed its KATFISH towed SAS sonar system as well as a Kraken light weight SAS (LW-SAS) onboard a navy-owned Huntington Ingalls REMUS 100 unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV).
The company’s team demonstrated that the range, area coverage rates, and resolution of Kraken’s KATFISH and LW-SAS systems met or exceeded target specifications, according to the statement.
Furthermore, the Kraken and FDU-A teams worked closely on the integration of the payload, demonstrating that the LW-SAS can be installed and removed from vehicles in the field.
Finally, the FDU-A team was trained on using Kraken’s cloud-based post-mission analysis tools for interrogating data following mission completion, and for conducting change detection.
“Kraken is excited to be once again working closely with our own RCN as an ‘Early Adopter’ to augment existing RCN Route Survey capabilities with a service offering based on the latest SAS technology available. The experience of working side by side with our FDU operators provided invaluable feedback to our engineers and technicians, and the RCN’s evaluation will serve as an excellent reference for a global offering, in particular to other NATO allies,” Karl Kenny, Kraken President and CEO noted.
“Partnering with Kraken Robotics to utilize Robotics as a Service allowed the RCN’s Seabed Intervention Systems department, as the end users, to employ a … SAS system on an already in-service UUV, the REMUS 100, to achieve a much higher definition resolution image. The trial and the partnership were very successful in integrating the SAS with the REMUS 100, and in demonstrating that increased resolution tremendously improved object identification and change detection,” Commander Roland Leyte, Director of Diving Safety (D DIV S) concluded.
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