Houston Mechatronics has unveiled its new subsea robot – Aquanaut.
The Aquanaut is a multipurpose subsea robot which employs a patented shape-shifting transformation from an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to a remotely operated vehicle (ROV).
The vehicle enables both the collection of data over long distances as well as manipulation of subsea objects.
“We firmly believe that this technology is a revolution in subsea robotics. Aquanaut, and our tightly coupled over-the-horizon software Commander, enables Houston Mechatronics to deliver more feature rich, safer subsea services to commercial and defense customers that demand it,” said Matthew Ondler , Houston Mechatronics CEO.
“Our team developed some of the most advanced robots that NASA ever produced and has been developing advanced subsea robotics technology for confidential customers for years. Aquanaut represents the pinnacle of our company’s expertise and experience and we are beyond excited to introduce this vehicle to customers.”
Nic Radford , CTO of Houston Mechatronics, stated: “We saw a great opportunity to fundamentally change the commercial and defense subsea markets with Aquanaut. Aquanaut was designed to operate over-the-horizon with onshore operator supervision. We have removed the need for onsite vessels (and people) from subsea work while still maintaining the operator’s situational awareness and the ability to modify missions, which our customers demand.
“Our capability can truly transform industries. For the warfighter, this means increasing the standoff distance therefore resulting in safer conditions. For commercial customers, this means that we can provide more capability than they have today for much less cost.”