Houston Mechatronics Leverages Greensea's OPENSEA

Greensea says its universal open software architecture OPENSEA was put to work as a development platform for Houston Mechatronics in the early development phases of its shape-shifting Aquanaut underwater vehicle.

HMI's Aquanaut is a multipurpose subsea robot which employs a patented shape-shifting transformation from an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to a tetherless remotely operated vehicle (ROV), removing the need for large vessels and umbilicals. The vehicle's two distinct operating modes enable both the efficient collection of data as well as the remote operation of maintenance and repair tasks at a significantly lower cost than today's technology.

Aquanaut utilizes a similar software architecture that allows for collaboration with OPENSEA, and HMI was able to leverage Greensea’s experience in subsea navigation and vehicle control early on while focusing their development efforts on their core competencies: robotics, manipulation and autonomy.

“OPENSEA enabled us to quickly integrate an executive control and mission planning solution onto Aquanaut, our transforming AUV/ROV. The open and modular architecture of Greensea’s software allowed us to pick and choose tools within the SDK that covered our own software gaps. This, in turn, allowed us to pull our testing schedules forward and achieve both our customer’s and company’s milestones during early phases of Aquanaut development and testing,” Jide Akinyode, Aquanaut Program Manager.

“HMI is the perfect example of how OPENSEA as a platform can be used to expand a company’s technology footprint without adding the overhead of having foundation-level technologies such as navigation and vehicle control,” said Ben Kinnaman, CEO of Greensea. “Greensea has spent more than a decade developing and testing systems needed for highly accurate subsea navigation and control in all kinds of hostile, demanding environments. Using the OPENSEA SDK, HMI is able to develop a revolutionary idea on a robust platform.”