Oceaneering International Inc., Houston, announced today in a press release that its Subsea Robotics and Aerospace and Defense Technologies segments were awarded a multi-million dollar contract by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) of the U.S. Department of Defense to build a Freedom™ autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and establish an onshore remote operations center (OROC) for the U.S. Navy.
The statement noted that the award highlights Oceaneering’s ability to leverage technology originally developed to support the offshore energy industry into other markets, including the defense industry. The vehicle will be manufactured at Oceaneering’s Morgan City, La. facility.
Peter Buchanan, senior director for Oceaneering’s Subsea Robotics segment, stated, “Oceaneering is excited to partner with the DIU and the U.S. Navy. This award allows us to deliver commercial technology driven by energy industry needs to the U.S. Department of Defense to address subsea security needs.”
Martin McDonald, Oceaneering’s senior vice president for Subsea Robotics stated, “Our global footprint and worldwide supply chain allows Oceaneering to maintain a 99% uptime for the world’s largest fleet of work class subsea robotic vehicles. Oceaneering is able to leverage our existing facilities and supply chain to manufacture vehicles at scale, as we have done and continue to do for the energy industry.”
Oceaneering heighted that the company has conducted remote operations of commercial subsea robotic systems from OROCs since 2015 and has performed over 120,000 hours of remote operations to date. This recent contract award will bring this commercial capability to the U.S. Navy, the statement said.
