While the Beatles sailed the sea of green in their Yellow Submarine, no one’s aboard Lockheed Martin’s Marlin Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). And that’s what Lockheed Martin hopes will make it appealing to the offshore oil and gas industry.
The advanced patented Echoscope® 3-D imaging sonar, produced by Coda Octopus Group Inc., has been selected by Lockheed Martin for a new fleet of autonomous subsea inspection vehicles.
Echoscope® provides the Marlin™ Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) with the unique sensory inputs that enable the construction of real-time 3-D models of structures up to 1,000 ft deep regardless of water clarity. The Marlin™ AUV is undergoing final development testing and is planned for introduction to the market later this year.
“We look forward to providing oil and gas operating companies with real-time 3D modeling capability using Echoscope onboard the Marlin,” said Coda Octopus President of Technology Blair Cunningham . “We supplied more than four Echoscopes® under this program and are very pleased with the results of pre-production models and trials.”
Benefits of utilizing the Echoscope® for subsea inspection operations include increased productivity, unsurpassed data density and enhanced operational safety in complex environments. The sensor was selected based on its unique ability to provide real-time point cloud images of underwater environments.
[mappress] Press Release, June 26, 2012