Canadian marine robotics company Kraken Robotics Inc. said Thursday it had secured a $3 million contract to carry out boulder detection subsea survey services as part of an offshore wind farm project located in Europe.
Kraken’s contract scope includes mobilization of a dedicated survey vessel, deployment of optimal sub-bottom survey equipment, and expert personnel to provide specialist engineering design support to de-risk the installation of the project’s two large offshore substations.
This survey campaign will be executed in Q4 2023 with Kraken’s Acoustic Corer technology providing accurate, high-resolution 3D imaging of twenty-four sub-seabed cores, with the cores placed to maximize coverage over the foundation leg locations, Kraken said.
Greg Reid, President & Chief Executive Officer, said: “Kraken is proud to be involved in this important renewable energy project, which further reinforces the growing demand for our expert sub-seabed survey capabilities in providing valuable knowledge and highly specialized technologies to support energy transition.”
Kraken Robotics said that the key to enabling the award is its Kraken’s Acoustic Corer technology, which Kraken says was chosen for this type of subsea survey project "for its unique and proven ability to locate boulders of 0.3 meters and larger within the seabed’s subsurface."
"As the Acoustic Corer operates statically and is deployed on the seabed, positional accuracy to identify boulders and other hazards is greatly improved. This also enables it to operate in higher sea states, compared to other surface-towed sub-bottom sensors, which makes it ideal for surveys carried out during challenging winter environments," Kraken Robotics said.