Maritime autonomy specialist Exail has opened a new innovation hub that will engage in all aspects of marine autonomous operations to help meet the challenges of the growing blue economy, the company announced on 18 July 2023.
The new centre will be used to deliver increased operational advantage to US government and civil customers. This includes the US production of its DriX uncrewed surface vessel (USV), which can be used for maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance as well as subsea/surface data acquisition; the housing of a remote operations centre to conduct worldwide remote autonomous operations; establishing local operations, maintenance and training facilities; and providing expertise on maritime autonomy while also training future generations on the use of autonomous vessels.
The new hub will be located at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), which is a recognised leader in the field of ocean mapping research, and will be sited within UNH’s Olson Advanced Manufacturing Center in Durham to facilitate collaborative work with UNH’s Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping (CCOM).
The opening of the new maritime autonomy innovation hub was celebrated on 15 July in the presence of UNH President Jim Dean, US Senator Maggie Hassan and Assistant Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Nicole LeBoeuf.
“We’ve been working together with UNH for the past six years pioneering uncrewed technologies, and we are now capitalising on our common achievements with the opening of this new innovation hub,” Marine Slingue, president at Exail, was quoted as saying in a company press release. “We’re very proud and excited to take this next step in our US adventure, and we would like to thank UNH, CCOM and NOAA for their great support, leadership and vision on the use of uncrewed technologies that took us where we are today. We look forward to our continuous partnership with them and all the great work we achieve together to keep advancing maritime autonomy in the US.”
Exail’s defence-related activities cover mine countermeasures (MCM) solutions such as stand-off MCM systems and mine and obstacle avoidance sonars; navigation solutions such as attitude and heading reference systems, inertial navigation systems and underwater acoustic positioning systems; maritime domain awareness systems such as USVs, autonomous underwater vehicles, remotely operated towed vehicles, forward-looking sonars and synthetic aperture sonars; and ship equipment and protection solutions such as signature management systems, steering and dive control systems, energy conversion systems, and auxiliary electric propulsion systems.
Peter Felstead
