HUGIN AUV Nominated

Kongsberg Maritime is proud to have been named by the Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International (AUVSI) as a finalist in its prestigious XCELLENCE Awards. KONGSBERG’s HUGIN Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) was selected from a large pool of entrants to be shortlisted in the Hardware – Platform group of the Technology & Innovation category. Winners will be announced during an awards ceremony at AUVSI XPONENTIAL on Tuesday, Oct. 6 from 4:00 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. CDT at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas.

The HUGIN AUV – first launched in 1993 – is a versatile, multi-role sensor platform for complex underwater survey tasks including hydrography, geophysical survey and inspection, plus defence tasks such as mine countermeasures. A typical HUGIN AUV can carry and operate more than 10 acoustic mapping, imaging, profiling and environmental payload sensors concurrently.

Equipped with advanced adaptive, in-mission autonomy in addition to the hierarchical, conditioned-based autonomy that guides the vehicle along a prescribed mission plan, HUGIN can react and adapt its mission to its surroundings. For example, it can follow a pipeline, avoid collisions, smooth contours or even re-plan its mission to photograph objects detected in the sonar data. The latest version, HUGIN Superior, is rated to depths up to 6,000m and, equipped with a new version of the KONGSBERG HISAS synthetic aperture sonar, covers up to 4.5 square kilometres per hour with sonar resolution of better than 5 by 5 cm across the entire swath.

“We are delighted that HUGIN has been nominated as a finalist for the XCELLENCE Awards,” says Richard Mills, VP Marine Robotics Sales, Kongsberg Maritime.

With more than 1,000,000 line kilometres of commercial survey to draw on, HUGIN is a truly versatile hardware platform which is applicable to a host of subsea applications, in fields ranging from academia to defence. Our technology is at the forefront of subsea research and is rapidly changing our understanding of the world in which we live: at present, less than 20% of the ocean floor has been mapped across the globe. HUGIN Superior is designed to provide more data and meaningful information to assist organisations with fulfilling the Seabed 2030 requirement of mapping the entire ocean floor by 2030.

The AUVSI XCELLENCE Awards honour innovators in the unmanned systems industry, including individuals and organisations, with a demonstrated commitment to advancing autonomy, leading and promoting safe adoption of unmanned systems, and developing programs that use these technologies to save lives and improve the human condition.

The AUVSI XCELLENCE Awards celebrate the achievements of individuals and organisations who have applied unmanned systems technology to create solutions to address a range of challenges affecting business and society," said Brian Wynne, president and CEO of AUVSI. “AUVSI is pleased to recognize these finalists for their perseverance and dedication to turn dreams into reality.”

For further information, please contact

GUNVOR HATLING MIDTBØ, Vice President, Communications,
Gunvor Hatling Midtbø
Vice President, Communications