Based in Bellevue, Washington, Sound Metrics designs and manufactures imaging sonars that deliver the clearest, most detailed video images in their class. The company’s line of products can be deployed from vessels, ROVs (remotely operated vehicles), AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles) and by divers. In 1999, the U.S. Navy asked engineers at the Applied Physics Lab, University of Washington, to develop a tool capable of identifying swimming intruders in cloudy or dark water. With very detailed image quality and fast frame rates, the imaging sonar the researchers created delivered near video-like data, enough to capture the behavior of highly dynamic objects. Requests for other applications soon followed and in 2002 the research team founded Sound Metrics.