The HUGIN® Superior is equipped with the new HISAS 1032 Dual Receiver interferometric synthetic aperture sonar (SAS), which doubles the area coverage rate of previous systems and provides high resolution imagery and bathymetry data products. A redesigned processing toolchain reduces the time-to-data and provides full featured in mission processing capabilities. The AUV system also includes the de facto industry standard EM® 2040 mkII multibeam echo sounder along with the latest generation of sensors for sub bottom profiling, optical imaging, laser profiling, magnetic sensing and water turbidity sensing. All payload and navigation data are stored on a swappable network attached storage (NAS) device with 10 gigabit Ethernet connectivity for the fastest possible access to the data after the mission.
A new feature introduced with the HUGIN® Superior is the possibility to use the HISAS synthetic aperture sonar as a navigation aiding sensor to greatly improve the autonomous navigation performance. Developed in close collaboration with the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (FFI), the HUGIN® Superior applies sophisticated signal processing algorithms to extract velocity information from the sonar data in real time. Used as an aiding input to the inertial navigation system this provides unmatched autonomous navigation performance.
HUGIN® Superior was designed to be the most advanced and capable AUV commercially available and we are proud to work with customers who share our desire to expand the boundaries of autonomous underwater technology.