Kraken Robotics to test its equipment with Royal Canadian Navy

Canadian company Kraken Robotics Inc. has signed a Robotics as a Service (RaaS) contract with the Canadian government for testing of ultra-high-resolution survey equipment with the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). 

This $500,000 contract is funded under the Canadian government’s Innovative Solutions Canada program, and the testing department for this service offering is 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. 

The contract involves testing the Kraken RaaS capability in two configurations:

• Towed KATFISH synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) system, deployed on a surface vessel of opportunity (the R/V Ocean Seeker). This could also be tested onboard an RCN Asset (such as the Kingston-class MCDV). One purpose of the test is to show that in combination with RaaS, vessels of opportunity can also be used at a lower cost and higher availability to augment the RCN’s capabilities.
• Untethered light weight SAS system, deployed on an RCN underwater vessel of opportunity (REMUS 100 AUV), and tested with the KATFISH system above. A purpose of this test is to show that RaaS can be quickly added to existing RCN assets, to augment their capabilities.

“Kraken is excited to be able to offer RaaS to the RCN as an “Early Adopter” to augment existing RCN Route Survey with a Service offering based on the latest SAS technology available. Kraken seeks to offer our Robotics as a Service globally, in particular to other NATO allies,” Karl Kenny, Kraken President and CEO noted.

This contract will be completed by March 31, 2022. In the future, the company believes its RaaS offering could provide significant benefits to other navies around the world.