Kongsberg Discovery’s Hugin Endurance Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) has set a new record by autonomously navigating to a depth of 3,400 meters during a multi-week mission. This achievement marks a significant milestone in underwater exploration, eliminating the need for surface ships and offering substantial savings in time and resources.
The Hugin Endurance is the latest addition to the Hugin family, renowned for its deep-water operational capabilities. Weighing 8 tons and measuring 40 feet, this AUV operates independently for extended periods, showcasing unparalleled precision and endurance. During its record-setting mission, the AUV successfully covered depths ranging from 50 to 3,400 meters, with a total distance of 1,200 nautical miles. Remarkably, it returned with a position error of only 0.02% of the distance travelled, highlighting its precise navigation capabilities.
Equipped with state-of-the-art technology, the Hugin Endurance features Kongsberg’s HISAS synthetic aperture sonars, EM multibeam systems, and the Sunstone inertial navigation system with HISAS micro-navigation. These advanced tools enable high-quality data collection and autonomous decision-making, making the AUV a leader in commercial surveying.
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The AUV’s design includes the latest generation of pressure-tolerant Li-ion batteries, sensor redundancy, and in-mission processing, ensuring reliability and accuracy. Its optimized hydrodynamics, excellent maneuverability, and high stabilization accuracy make it ideal for long-range, shore-to-shore operations.
One of the key benefits of the Hugin Endurance is its low environmental impact. The AUV can operate continuously between shores for up to 15 days, conducting unsupervised geophysical surveys over a range of 1,367 miles (2,200 kilometres) and mapping areas of up to 424 square miles (1,100 square kilometres). It can function at depths of up to 6,000 meters, with top-notch navigation tools that allow for launching and retrieval from shore or any available ship.
The mission was meticulously planned to validate the AUV’s design criteria and test its performance in real-world conditions. The Hugin Endurance successfully covered survey areas and straight-line transits with legs ranging from 60 to 300 nautical miles. Using Kongsberg’s HISAS 1032 Dual Rx, the AUV gathered high-resolution synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) imagery and bathymetry data covering 36 square nautical miles in less than 48 hours. At heights as low as 9 meters, it also collected laser profiling and camera images.
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The success of this mission proves HUGIN Endurance’s shore-to-shore operational capability. Removing the need for a surface ship provides a huge savings to our customers, in both time and resources. We are proud of our exceptional team has been working very hard to add this capability to our AUV portfolio.” said Espen Henriksen, Executive Vice President Uncrewed Platforms Division. (kongsberg)
Kongsberg Discovery emphasized that the mission was designed to push the Hugin Endurance to its limits. The success of this mission proves the AUV’s shore-to-shore operational capability, removing the need for a surface ship and providing significant savings to customers. The firm stated, “This mission exemplifies the advanced capabilities of Hugin Endurance, confirming its reliability and accuracy over extended unsupervised operations.”
Kongsberg Discovery’s Hugin Endurance represents a significant advancement in autonomous underwater technology. Its ability to handle complex, multi-day missions without human intervention places it at the forefront of unmanned deep-water exploration and defense applications. This achievement solidifies Kongsberg Discovery’s reputation as a leader in the field, with approximately 100 Hugin systems deployed worldwide.
