Kongsberg Maritime is pleased to announce that Italian survey company Lighthouse SpA will take delivery of a HUGIN Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) system in March 2021. The HUGIN to be delivered is rated to 4,500 metres and equipped with a full geophysical survey payload, including a KONGSBERG HISAS 1032 synthetic aperture sonar, EM2040 multibeam echosounder, sub-bottom profiler, camera and laser, together with a range of environmental sensors.

The scope of supply extends to all equipment required for day-to-day operations, including a 30 ft AUV container housing the Stinger launch and recovery system, battery chargers and maintenance equipment. A 10 ft operations room container is configured for mission planning and dive management as well as data download and review.

The HUGIN AUV system is the most successful commercial AUV in the world. More survey kilometres have been completed by HUGINs than any other AUV. Lighthouse’s HUGIN benefits from some proven enabling technologies that further enhance its capabilities, including automatic pipeline following. This uses real-time data from the HISAS and EM2040 systems to detect pipelines, tracking either alongside or over the top of them to collect sonar, camera and laser data.

“We at Lighthouse have chosen to invest in a HUGIN AUV System, confident that it will provide state-of-the-art AUV technology with unique quality and reliability,” said Mr Pietro Basciano, CEO of Lighthouse SpA. “We believe this will open commercial opportunities for us. From our first contact with KONGSBERG we immediately realised that we had made the right choice; their competence and professionalism combined with an ability to understand our needs made everything easy. We look forward to operating the HUGIN for many years to come.”

Richard Mills, Vice President of Marine Robotics Sales at Kongsberg Maritime is keen to welcome Lighthouse to the growing family of HUGIN AUV operators: “We are honoured that Lighthouse chose the KONGSBERG HUGIN AUV System for their survey operations. We look forward to working with their team to ensure the AUV exceeds their expectations.”