Kongsberg Discovery has completed in-water demonstrations of the HUGIN autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) as part of the commercial evaluation of large-diameter unmanned underwater vehicle (LDUUV) systems by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the U.S. Navy.
In January this year, Kongsberg Discovery was awarded a contract to deliver HUGIN AUV for the U.S. Military. In April, a delegation from the U.S. came to Horten in Norway for a comprehensive week-long demonstration.
Topics included operations, design philosophy, systems approach, sensors, batteries, navigation, autonomy, manufacturing, physical vehicle portfolio, and hands-on familiarization of interfaces.
“I am extremely pleased with the visit and demonstrations we held for the team sent by DIU and the U.S. Navy. The visitors were provided a unique opportunity to both see in-water capabilities and shoreside sessions to introduce Kongsberg’s experience in the deep water AUV space…. We are honored to be a part of the U.S. Navy’s LDUUV effort and are excited to receive additional feedback. Our business model is tightly intertwined with our customers, and we get better through them,” said Espen Henriksen , Executive Vice President Uncrewed Platforms Division.
Kongsberg produced three models that fall into the LDUUV category defined by the U.S. Navy. The newest and most capable of those is HUGIN Endurance.
To enable long-term unsupported missions, new advancements had to be made, including greater redundancy, a new autonomous mission management system, greater situational awareness, and the ability to deal with a wide range of varying water density.
Vice President of Sales, Rich Patterson , Uncrewed Platforms Division explained that the market for AUV’s has changed over the last few years.
“In the early years of the program our user base tended to be primarily in the commercial market. In the last few years, we have seen a shift in the marketplace with increasing demand from the defense space as our AUV technology became more mature and were demonstrated to have extremely high reliability,” he noted.
Twelve navies are using HUGIN in real-world missions such as Intelligence Preparation of the Operational Environment (IPoE), Mine Counter Measure (MCM), Subsea and Seabed Warfare (SSW), and seafloor mapping operations.