Autonomous vehicle manufacturer Hydroid Inc., a subsidiary of Kongsberg Maritime, announced it has completed testing of the REMUS 600 autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) with the newly integrated HISAS 2040 synthetic aperture sonar for an unidentified navy customer.
The HISAS 2040 system is engineered and manufactured at Kongsberg Maritime in Horten, Norway. This advanced technology allows for higher resolution sonar images than conventional sonars and is now available to Hydroid customers.
“Compared to traditional sonars, the HISAS 2040 sonar reduces survey time and provides data images with a resolution 10 times higher than traditional sonars,” said Graham Lester, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Hydroid.
“It also offers high-performance in-mission processing and sonar quality assessment. This integration advancement is an example of how we consistently challenge ourselves as a company to evolve products and technologies to meet our customer’s future needs. It is our passion to be continually advancing our products.”
The HISAS 2040 is able to build up a series of synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) images that represent different observation angles. Through this multi-aspect imaging, an AUV operator is able to obtain an extra dimension in the data set since many complex objects have a high aspect-dependent echo and shadow structure.
The HISAS 2040 has a practical resolution of 5cm x 5cm at all ranges.