HUGIN Endurance in the waterline
HUGIN

Safeguarding our critical undersea infrastructure

Below the surface of the sea lie the threads that bind our society together. From the cables that carry data to the pipelines powering progress, we increasingly rely on ‘invisible’ ocean assets.

  • Text:Kongsberg Discovery

    Photo:Kongsberg Discovery

Yet these vital arteries face growing risks; from natural wear and tear, extreme weather and accidents, to deliberate acts of sabotage. The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022 was a wake-up call, prompting renewed focus from governments and operators alike. Today, the protection of critical undersea assets is recognised as a matter of national and economic security across Europe and beyond.

Beneath the waves lie the arteries of modern life—data cables, energy pipelines, and infrastructure we rarely see but always depend on.

Storms, wear, accidents, and sabotage threaten these lifelines. The 2022 sabotage of Nord Stream was a turning point. Suddenly, the invisible became vulnerable—and protection became urgent. Governments and operators now treat undersea infrastructure as critical to national security.

You need technology that works in tough conditions. That’s where HUGIN comes in.

Protecting those assets requires a combination of political will, cross-sector collaboration, and advanced technology capable of working independently in one of the most hostile environments on Earth. The importance of technologies like HUGIN has never been greater.

For more than 30 years, Kongsberg Discovery’s HUGIN family of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) has been at the forefront of subsea monitoring, inspection and asset protection, let’s look at why:

Proven reliability

Trust is a prerequisite for demanding subsea operations. 

Offshore energy operators, authorities, and defence organisations need complete assurance that chosen tools will perform, day in day out, in the hardest to reach arenas. HUGIN, the world’s most commercially successful AUV, has a proven track record of everyday excellence.

Engineered through decades of steady evolution, the HUGIN family offers robust architecture, redundant safety systems, and fully autonomous capabilities that allow operators to send assets on multi-day missions, continually harvesting high resolution data sets. 

HUGINs can autonomously track either small cables or large pipeline, while also providing wide, highly efficient coverage rates over long distances, at operational depths ranging from just a few metres below the surface right down to 6,000 metres (with the high specification HUGIN Endurance, Superior and 6000).

Trust in operations is one thing, accuracy another. 

And it’s here where the HUGIN family truly excels.

Accuracy without compromise

Kongsberg Discovery offers integrated sensor payloads capable of unparalleled performance. From the flexibility of the smaller HUGIN Edge, with side-scan sonar or next generation synthetic aperture sonar for ultra high-resolution imagery and bathymetry, to the benchmark-setting HUGIN Superior - combining features such as HISAS 1032 dual receivers and EM2040 Mk2 multi-beam echo sounders with capabilities such as the very latest autonomous pipeline tracking features – there’s a HUGIN designed for delivering complete accuracy on every mission.

Precise locational data also comes as standard, with top of the range HUGINs offering 

MicroNavigation technology providing real-time accuracy better than 0.04% of distance travelled. This means features, anomalies and threats can be pinpointed with confidence, ensuring the operator can deliver results with complete confidence. 

Easy does it

With increasing complexity of challenges, it helps to make AUV operations as simple as possible, enabling faster responses and safe, secure operations. Here, again, HUGIN stands apart. 

While AUVs have traditionally required heavy infrastructure and complex handling, HUGIN offers streamlined ease of use with a customised stinger launch and recovery system. This puts operators firmly in control, guiding the vehicle smoothly in and out of the water, even in higher sea states, negating the risk inherent in crane use, while extending operational weather windows.

Once in the water, HUGIN’s modular high-density battery system ensures reliable long-term operations, and rapid turnaround between missions. Batteries can be swapped in under an hour, with the vehicle redeployed almost immediately. Combined with its exceptional duty cycle - proven in offshore campaigns where the vehicle was active for more than 90% of operational days - HUGIN sets the industry standard for productivity.

Ensuring resilience in subsea infrastructure

From offshore energy and telecommunications to defence and marine science, the integrity of subsea infrastructure underpins modern life. The urgency to safeguard it has never been greater. 

That urgency is reflected in the rapid uptake of Kongsberg Discovery’s Oslofjord Critical Maritime Infrastructure (CMI) Protection Test Bed, opened in June 2025. Here, HUGIN AUVs play a central role in testing and validating integrated protection solutions in realistic conditions, alongside coastal radars, satellite AIS, ROVs, and other advanced technologies. The facility provides stakeholders with a collaborative platform to develop, refine, and stress-test capabilities - helping to close gaps and build on-going resilience.

With more successful missions than any other AUV on the market, the HUGIN family offers exactly that. Combining unrivalled reliability, operational ease, and precision performance, HUGIN delivers the confidence stakeholders need to monitor, inspect, and protect what matters most - 24/7, worldwide.

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