Oceaneering International, Inc., reports 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 US Department of Defense to build a Freedom autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and establish an Onshore Remote Operations Center (OROC) for the US Navy.
The subsea company said that the award highlights its 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 facility at Morgan City, Louisiana.
Oceaneering says that it 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 US Navy.
