HALIFAX, Nova Scotia and ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland, April 03, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LeeWay Marine (LeeWay) is pleased to announce that it has successfully completed trials of the Kraken SeaScout® system, developed by Kraken Robotics Inc. (TSX-V: PNG) (OTCQB: KRKNF). The trials took place from March 18 – 29, 2019, onboard the LeeWay Odyssey.
Building on their previously announced cooperation agreement (01 October 2018), LeeWay and Kraken are testing and validating the SeaScout® system for use on LeeWay’s newest fast patrol vessel, the LeeWay Striker. The two companies continue to strengthen their partnership in an effort to collect high resolution benthic data in an efficient way, while building technological capacity in Atlantic Canada.
Trials were successfully completed near Halifax, Nova Scotia, validating a number of performance objectives set out;
- Stable performance during high speed towing operations (up to 10 kts)
- Stable performance in a variety of sea states (up to SS4)
- Navigational accuracy across all speed ranges and depths
- High resolution imagery and bathymetry
- Evaluation of launch and recovery with Kraken’s tentacle winch and docking head
“We are very happy to support LeeWay in their development of the Striker, and integration of the SeaScout®. The success of this trial is not only further validation of the efficiency, effectiveness and ease of use of Kraken’s technology, but also demonstrating the potential for small-and-medium Enterprises (SMEs) to collaborate”, said Karl Kenny, President & CEO of Kraken
During the trials at sea, Jamie Sangster, CEO of LeeWay, and Karl Kenny attended a meeting of Canada’s Ocean Supercluster (OSC), where Kraken representatives spoke about further opportunities for SME collaboration within the OSC. Kraken and LeeWay are both members of the Ocean Supercluster and are participants in OceanVision – a proposal to develop and demonstrate innovative new methods for ocean data collection.
“Through our collaboration with Kraken we’ve seen that the SeaScout® can provide tangible value to our clients through increased data resolution, faster survey speeds, and a safe operational profile”, said Jamie Sangster. “This project is an excellent example of natural SME collaboration; each company brings complementary capabilities which, when combined, not only increases effectiveness and efficiency of benthic data collection, but also helps to build the ocean technology ecosystem in Atlantic Canada, resulting in a lasting benefit far greater than the sum of its parts”.
About LeeWay Striker
Striker is capable of operational speeds of over 50 knots, making the platform the world’s fastest mine hunting and hydrographic patrol vessel (MHPV) to deploy to survey areas. The Striker MHPV will be targeted to mine hunting and hydrographic survey applications in littoral and offshore waters.
The SeaScout® system incorporates several industry-leading modules from Kraken Robotics:
- KATFISH™, an actively stabilized towfish with Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS) providing wide area seafloor coverage, superior pixel resolution for target detection and real-time full resolution SAS processing to enable in-stride automatic target detection;
- TENTACLE®, an intelligent all-electric winch that hosts sophisticated algorithms for dynamic manual, semi-autonomous or fully autonomous control. The integrated motion reference unit tracks the motion of the host vessel, and the onboard software models and predicts the sea state. The winch will be integrated into a completely Autonomous Launch and Recovery System (ALARS);
- Real time sea-floor imagery transmission using secure, reliable and fast content delivery to cloud-based storage location to/from fixed sites and mobile platforms: and,
- Cloud-based data analytics, using machine learning for automated change detection of targets by comparing seabed targets against previously surveyed bottom mapping baseline information.
About Leeway Marine Inc.
LeeWay Marine is a vessel owner/operator based at C.O.V.E. (The Centre for Ocean Ventures and Entrepreneurship) in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Their range of vessels support geophysical and geotechnical surveys, offshore oil and gas, ocean technology development, physical oceanography and naval defence training. For more information, please visit www.leewaymarine.ca. Find us on Facebook and Twitter @leewaymarine, and on LinkedIn.
About Kraken Robotics Inc.
Kraken Robotics Inc. (TSX.V:PNG) (OTCQB: KRKNF) is a marine technology company dedicated to the production and sale of software-centric sensors and underwater robotic systems. The company is headquartered in St. John’s, Newfoundland with offices in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia; Toronto, Ontario, Bremen, Germany; and, Fairfax, Virginia. For more information, please visit www.krakenrobotics.com, www.krakenrobotik.de, www.krakenpower.de. Find us on social media on Twitter (@krakenrobotics), Facebook (@krakenroboticsinc) and LinkedIn.
Media Contacts
Jamie Sangster, CEO, LeeWay Marine
Jamie.sangster@leewaymarine.ca
Glenda Leyte, Marketing Manager, Kraken Robotics
gleyte@krakenrobotics.com
Three photos accompanying this announcement are available at:
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http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ed1ad7dc-3f90-4a29-b0ee-77bbbd8c4643
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