Kraken Robotics wins contract with Canada for Remote Mineunting.

According to a PR published by Kraken Robotics on December 9, 2022, Canada’s Ocean Company, announced it has been awarded a prime contract with the Government of Canada to provide Remote Minehunting and Disposal Systems (RMDS) for the Department of National Defense (DND).
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REMUS 600 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle. (Picture source: Kraken Robotics)

The contract consists of an estimated 24-month acquisition program followed by an initial five-year Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) program, which includes options for additional equipment, spare parts, training, and technical support.

Formal contract signature and kickoff of the Acquisition program will occur in January 2023. If all options in the Acquisition and ILS programs are selected, the total value will exceed $50 million, consisting of approximately $40 million for Acquisition and $10 million for ILS.

Kraken expects margins on this program to be in line with our historical corporate averages. Progress payments will be made over the 24-month term of the acquisition contract.

Under the program, Kraken will deliver remote minehunting and disposal systems to His Majesty’s Royal Canadian Navy on the East Coast (located in Halifax, Nova Scotia) and the West Coast (located in Esquimalt, British Columbia).

The RMDS consists of two classes of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs): Light Weight AUVs and Operator Portable AUVs, all of which will be equipped with Kraken’s AquaPix synthetic aperture sonar.

The RMDS also includes a number of Combat-variant and Training-variant mine disposal systems (MDS), transportable command center (TCC) and Computer-Based Trainer (CBT).

Kraken’s partners on this program include Kongsberg Maritime Canada Ltd., provider of HIl’s Mission Technologies Division’s REMUS AUV, thyssenkrupp Marine Systems Canada Ltd (tkMS), providing their SEAFOX mine disposal vehicles, and SH Defense who will provide the containerized multi mission module system “The Cube” as transportable command center and effector/ launch and recovery center.

RMDS Project Background

The Minister of National Defence has a mandate to ensure that the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) are equipped and prepared, if called upon, to protect Canadian sovereignty, defend North America, provide disaster relief, conduct search and rescue, support United Nations peace operations, and contribute to the security of our allies with their operation and coalition operations abroad.

Anti-mine warfare is a critical mission for the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), as unfriendly nations can easily disrupt the global economy by threatening to plant naval mines in crucial commercial waterways.

The RCN have a need to transform the way it conducts Naval Mine Countermeasures (NMCM) and seabed mapping from a post-cold war that focuses in pre- and post-operations mine clearance using surface ships, to a quickly deployable, autonomous systems that are accurate, flexible, replaceable, cost effective, and minimizes risk to personnel. Various allies’ research centers and navies employment of these systems has demonstrated they are effective in live NMCM operations.

The RCN’s Force Development ambitions for NMCM is to evolve present capabilities to include acquisition of accurate, modularized, portable and deployable systems that minimize ship’s staff exposure to potentially explosive ordnance and are operable from any platform including from ashore.

The RMDS capability is required to ensure safety for RCN warships and commercial ship navigating in critical maritime waterways worldwide. Accordingly, the capability must be modular, portable, and operable from various platforms or from shore locations.