| Kraken
Sonar Inc. (Kraken) announced today that its wholly-owned subsidiary,
Kraken Sonar Systems Inc. will receive a non-refundable financial contribution
of up to $495,000 from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial
Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP).
In addition to technical and business advisory services provided by
NRC-IRAP, the funding is being used to develop the Kraken Active Towed
Fish (KATFISH) for high speed, high resolution seabed mapping. The system
will enable real-time seabed imagery, bathymetry and advanced 3D digital
terrain models of the seabed. KATFISH will enable seabed mapping missions
optimized for both manned and unmanned surface vessels.
Karl Kenny, Kraken's President and CEO, said, "We are very grateful
for the continued support from NRC-IRAP. Their assistance enables us
to continue to innovate our seabed survey solutions. We've stated on
many occasions that cost effective and high resolution seabed mapping
is mission-critical for many military and commercial applications. Placing
a survey sensor -- such as Kraken's Miniature Synthetic Aperture Sonar
-- closer to the seafloor will result in the acquisition of much higher
resolution data. When the sensor is integrated onto a high speed, intelligently
stabilized towed platform such as KATFISH, better quality data is acquired
at a faster rate, thus improving efficiency and lowering both operational
and data acquisition costs. In fact, we believe that KATFISH provides
the highest resolution seabed pixels at the lowest cost compared to
any other competing survey sonar platform."
The business case for the KATFISH system involves two clearly identified
and distinct markets: commercial seabed survey and underwater defence.
In the commercial seabed survey market the offshore oil and gas production
industry has increased the need for surveys of existing infrastructure
(such as pipelines and subsea installations). Presently, this process
is completed with slow moving (1-2 knots) Remotely Operated underwater
Vehicles (ROV), or passively stable sonar systems at medium (3-4 knots)
speeds. KATFISH operates at speeds up to 8 knots.
Offshore exploration and production companies require comprehensive,
high-resolution surveys to ensure the integrity of these pipelines,
as well as the engineering and development of underwater facilities.
The results of these surveys must show detailed bottom topography, surface
features such as boulders, outcrops, debris, pockmarks, drag marks,
and gas vents, as well as sub-bottom features such as faults, shallow
gas pockets and sediment structure.
Reducing the cost and complexity of marine survey operations can profoundly
impact the economics of many marine industries. Driven by lower revenue
and energy prices, today's oil and gas sectors are now seeking new technologies
and tools that could lead to higher productivity, increased cost efficiencies
and improved business models that rely less on expensive conventional
manned systems. In fact, the offshore energy survey and mapping community
may be on the verge of profound disruption, similar to that brought
about by "aerial drones." Next generation low-logistics /
high-performance "ocean drones" are offering new options for
improved productivity at lower costs, and changing old business models
in the process.
In the defense market, there is a growing global requirement for modernization
of mine countermeasures solutions. The previous generation of single-role
minehunting vessels were designed and built between the 1970's - 1990's
and many are now being withdrawn from service. A major drive is to replace
these manned systems with multi-mission unmanned systems, such as Autonomous
Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs). While
AUVs provide a valuable tool in the mine warfare toolkit, they are typically
too slow (3-4 knots) to support in-stride, mine countermeasures. This
leaves a growing requirement for high resolution, high speed seabed
imaging platforms.
Until recently, conventional side scan sonars and multibeam echo-sounders
have been the leading technology for detailed mapping and imaging of
the seafloor. However, Kraken's revolutionary sonar technology called
AquaPix® -- Miniature Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Sonar (MINSAS)
is now available and is especially well-suited for both military and
commercial seabed surveys. MINSAS delivers ultra-high seabed image resolution
(3 cm), simultaneously co-registered 3D bathymetry and superior area
coverage rates. This underwater technology is similar to Interferometric
Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) that's used for mapping the Earth's
surface, but InSAS uses acoustic energy waves instead of InSAR's radio
waves.
MINSAS not only delivers co-registered imagery and topography maps for
very detailed site survey or infrastructure inspection (i.e. pipelines)
but, using repeated surveys of the same area, enables detection of changes
in seabed texture due to oil spills and even minute changes in the topography
(e.g. reservoir subsidence). This repeat-pass survey technique is again
analogous to the one used in InSAR to detect topographic changes such
as landslides, etc. The ability of the KATFISH platform to generate
centimetre-scale sonar resolution in all three dimensions can provide
significant improvement in the detection, classification and identification
of small seabed objects for both military and commercial seabed survey
missions.
From a platform perspective, towed sonar systems have the benefit of
providing high speed sonar data to operators in real-time, which is
a critical feature for search and survey operations requiring earliest
possible identification and classification of seabed targets. Onboard
real time processing of sonar data also allows for real-time online
quality monitoring of sonar data.
Passive towfish are the standard for most towed sonar surveys, however
passive towfish have a number of limitations. The depth (or altitude)
of a passive towfish is achieved by controlling the amount of cable
payout (cable scope), and the speed of the surface vessel. A passive
towfish does not have any active control surfaces or intelligent control
system, therefore cannot actively control its attitude, heading, depth
or altitude. The lack of active control means that a passive towfish
is unable to compensate for any motion disturbances introduced by the
surface ship, as a result of ship motion or environmental conditions
such as sea state. This can yield insufficient platform stability to
support onboard sonar and acoustic sensors.
However, actively controlled towfish provide a superior platform for
seabed survey, particularly when using SAS. An actively controlled towfish
can compensate for input disturbances, greatly improving the platform
stability and the overall image quality. In addition, intelligently
controlled active towfish can control their depth and altitude using
intelligent bottom following and bottom avoidance routines.
The actively control towfish technology being developed for the KATFISH
provides a number of significant market advantages over conventional
passively stable systems:
• Improved image quality
• Enables single-pass classification
• Enables higher tow speeds, which dramatically improves Area
Coverage Rate
• Reduces size and deck footprint on ships of opportunity
• Lowers risk of damage through bottom following and bottom avoidance
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