Kraken Debuts Ultra High Def Upgrade for AquaPix Imaging Sonars

Kraken Robotics Inc. announced it has achieved a practical resolution of 2 cm with a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS), Kraken’s AquaPix MINSAS.

“For demanding subsea survey missions in mine countermeasures, infrastructure monitoring and oil & gas exploration; data quality is of the essence," said Karl Kenny, Kraken’s President & CEO. "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 1.9 x 2.1 cm and maintains constant Ultra HD resolution across the entire swath. In additions, Kraken’s advanced image processing techniques help to extract all the available information from sonar echoes.

Kraken measures resolution in real-world conditions using a data-driven technique, developed by Kraken’s team of sonar scientists. 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.   

AquaPix MINSAS with Ultra HD software is now available and ready for integration on a wide variety of UUV platforms.