Kraken Announces Ultra High Definition Upgrade for AquaPixR Imaging Sonars

Kraken Robotics Inc announces that the Company is the first to achieve a practical resolution of 2 cm with a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS), Kraken’s AquaPix® MINSAS.

Karl Kenny, Kraken’s President & CEO said, “For demanding subsea survey missions in mine countermeasures, infrastructure monitoring and oil & gas exploration; data quality is of the essence.  The sensor that gets the job done most effectively is one that combines Ultra High Definition (Ultra HD) imagery with an extremely high area coverage rate.  Kraken’s latest development, the next generation AquaPix® Ultra HD processing software, has been designed to advance the state-of-the-art in seabed mapping for both high-speed towed systems and Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs).”

Kraken’s Ultra HD software improves the AquaPix® SAS image resolution from 3.0 x 3.3 cm (across along track) to an industry-leading 1.9 x 2.1 cm and maintains constant Ultra HD resolution across the entire swath. Compared to conventional SAS processing, the incredibly high pixel density of Kraken’s Ultra HD sonar imagery sets a new standard for seabed image quality, using Kraken’s advanced image processing techniques to extract all the available information from sonar echoes.

Unlike other SAS manufacturers that quote theoretical numbers for resolution, Kraken measures resolution in real-world conditions using a data-driven technique, developed by Kraken’s team of world-leading sonar scientists and published at an international ocean technology conference (Reference 1). The measured resolution of 1.9 x 2.1 cm includes effects such as aperture shading to reduce sidelobes, UUV nonlinear motion, and acoustic propagation in the ocean environment.

In mine warfare, it is well known that the probability of detecting and classifying a target increases with improving image resolution. A similar principle applies for commercial seabed survey operations, where clear imagery is needed to show the health and integrity of subsea assets.  Seabed mapping technologies are only effective when the resolution of the data being collected satisfies the objectives of the mission.  Using lower resolution sonars, customers require multiples passes to detect and classify an object with confidence, reducing the effective rate of area coverage.  Using Kraken’s AquaPixâ Ultra HD software, with its combination of speed, range, and resolution, customers can achieve the world’s highest resolution COTS SAS imagery, mapping the seabed in exceptional contrast, clarity and detail when every second counts.

AquaPix® MINSAS with Ultra HD software is now available and ready for integration on a wide variety of UUV platforms. For more information, click here.