ST. JOHN’S, NEWFOUNDLAND and HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA – 01 OCTOBER 2018/GLOBE NEWSWIRE/– Kraken Robotics Inc. (TSX-V: PNG) (OTCQB: KRKNF) (“Kraken” or the “Company”), is pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary, Kraken Robotic Systems Inc., has entered into a co-operation agreement with Leeway Marine Inc. Under the terms of the agreement, both companies will work together to integrate Kraken’s SeaScout® Expeditionary Seabed Mapping and Intelligence System onboard Leeway’s Striker high speed patrol vessel.

Jamie Sangster, Leeway Marine President and CEO said, “Leeway implements industry leading programs which are focused on efficient modular payload integration across the fleet. Our latest acquisition, Leeway Striker, pushes current industry boundaries by introducing military grade offshore performance to the subsea data acquisition market. The combination of reduced crew, increased transit speeds and sophisticated underwater robotic payloads, significantly improves response times and decreases data acquisition costs per square kilometre. The integration of Kraken’s SeaScout® system aboard Striker enables a significant leap in both the quality of data and the ability to collect data in harsh ocean conditions.”

Building on their previous work together, Kraken and Leeway have commenced detailed engineering design reviews with an objective of having a technology demonstration system deployed before the end of the year.  Kraken will be exhibiting the SeaScout® system at the defence security conference, DEFSEC, to be held in Halifax, Nova Scotia from October 2 – 4.  The Leeway Striker will also be docked at the DEFSEC pier and will be conducting operational cruises in Halifax harbour during the conference.

Karl Kenny, Kraken President and CEO said, “Today’s legacy minehunting systems are a reactive process that are slow to engage; employ dated assets that are cumbersome to operate; and provide low resolution data. With the advent of new technologies, such as Synthetic Aperture Sonar and robotics, a transformation of capability is now available to enable maritime dominance in littoral environments. Technical innovations such as the Striker/SeaScout system create capabilities far superior to existing legacy systems and will help shape next generation naval forces.”

About Leeway’s Striker Patrol Vessel

Striker is capable of operational speeds of over 50 knots, making the platform the world’s fastest Minehunting and Hydrographic Patrol Vessel (MHPV) to deploy to survey areas. The Striker MHPV will be targeted to minehunting and hydrographic survey applications in littoral waters with operational depths of up to 200 metres.

Maritime countries have embarked on transformation initiatives within their militaries to address the new security realities of the 21st century. One of the realities that has not changed is the threat posed to modern navies by naval mines. Much like their land-based counterparts, the improvised explosive device (IED), naval mines represent a clear and present danger to modern seafaring fleets. Difficult to dispose of but cheap to deploy, mines have been and continue to be a useful means of denying access to waters.

Global proliferation of naval mines, both older variants and advanced designs, has continued to grow. As naval forces engage in more expeditionary operations, they must be prepared to counter the challenge posed by mines. This includes ensuring that vital sea lines of communication, strategic chokepoints throughout the world, commercial ports and naval bases remain open and uncontested. To meet the challenge of the 21st century mine threat, maritime countries must continue to develop balanced minehunting and hydrographic mapping capabilities that satisfy expeditionary operations.

The need to replace aging mine hunting ships, some of which have been in service since the 1970’s, has driven the need for a vessel capable of fulfilling multiple capabilities. Pooling together resources and increasing the efficiency of one class of vessel has resulted in the Striker/SeaScout combination of minehunting and hydrographic capabilities in a single platform.

The SeaScout® system incorporates several industry-leading modules from Kraken Robotics:

  • KATFISH™, an actively stabilized towfish with Synthetic Aperture Sonar providing wide area seafloor coverage, superior pixel resolution for target detection and real-time full resolution SAS processing to enable in-stride automatic target detection.
  • TENTACLE®, an intelligent all-electric winch that hosts sophisticated algorithms for dynamic manual, semi-autonomous or fully autonomous control. The integrated motion reference unit tracks the motion of the host vessel, and the onboard software models and predicts the sea state.The winch will be integrated into a completely Autonomous Launch & Recovery System (ALARS).
  • Real time sea-floor imagery transmission using secure, reliable and fast content delivery to cloud-based storage location to/from fixed sites and mobile platforms.
  • Cloud based data analytics, using machine learning for automated change detection of targets by comparing seabed targets against previously surveyed bottom mapping baseline information.

 

About Leeway Marine Inc.

Leeway Marine is a vessel owner/operator based at C.O.V.E (The Centre for Ocean Ventures and Entrepreneurship) in Dartmouth NS. Their range of vessels support geophysical and geotechnical surveys, offshore oil and gas, ocean technology development, physical oceanography and naval defence training. For more information, please visit www.leewaymarine.ca. Find us on social media @leewaymarine.

 

About Kraken Robotics Inc.

Kraken Robotics Inc. (TSX.V:PNG) (OTCQB: KRKNF) is a marine technology company dedicated to the production and sale of software-centric sensors and underwater robotic systems. The company is headquartered in St. John’s, Newfoundland with offices in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia; Toronto, Ontario, Bremen, Germany; and Fairfax, Virginia. For more information, please visit www.krakenrobotics.com, www.krakenrobotik.de, www.krakenpower.de. Find us on social media on Twitter (@krakenrobotics), Facebook (@krakenroboticsinc), and LinkedIn.

Certain information in this news release constitutes forward-looking statements. When used in this news release, the words “may”, “would”, “could”, “will”, “intend”, “plan”, “anticipate”, “believe”, “seek”, “propose”, “estimate”, “expect”, and similar expressions, as they relate to the Company, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. In particular, this news release contains forward-looking statements with respect to, among other things, business objectives, expected growth, results of operations, performance, business projects and opportunities and financial results. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the Company’s current views with respect to future events based on certain material factors and assumptions and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including without limitation, changes in market, competition, governmental or regulatory developments, general economic conditions and other factors set out in the Company’s public disclosure documents. Many factors could cause the Company’s actual results, performance or achievements to vary from those described in this news release, including without limitation those listed above. These factors should not be construed as exhaustive. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying forward-looking statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described in this news release and such forward-looking statements included in, or incorporated by reference in this news release, should not be unduly relied upon. Such statements speak only as of the date of this news release. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange Inc. nor its Regulation Services Provide (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release, and the OTCQB has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.

 

For further information, please contact:

Sean Peasgood, Investor Relations

(647) 955-1274

sean@sophiccapital.com

 

Greg Reid, Chief Financial Officer

(416) 818-9822

greid@krakenrobotics.com

 

Glenda Leyte, Marketing Manager

(709) 757-5757 extension 288

gleyte@krakenrobotics.com