EvoLogics news at Ocean Business 2023

Doors open: the EvoLogics North America sales office

The new year marked an important milestone for EvoLogics with the opening of a new sales office in the United States, located in Yorktown, Virginia.

The entry into North America has been carefully prepared over the course of 2022: besides strategic market analysis, EvoLogics engineers spent two weeks touring the East and West Coasts, meeting with over 40 customers and the three main distributors in the country. The newly founded EvoLogics North America is conveniently located on the East Coast, allowing the company to better serve its customers in the US market.

Leading the US branch is Brian Johnson, who serves as the Director of Sales/Operations for EvoLogics North America. He brings over 15 years of experience in maritime law enforcement and homeland security to the role and holds numerous specialized certifications and instructorships in areas such as critical infrastructure protection, port security/anti-terrorism, surveillance/counter-surveillance detection, radiation detection/mitigation, search and rescue, underwater search and recovery, incident command, advanced ROV/sonar operations, and advanced boat handling. He also has experience in government ITB and RFP processes, as well as grant writing.

Joining Brian is Chuck Meyer, who serves as the Operations Manager. Charles (Chuck) has joined EvoLogics after a career in maritime law enforcement/homeland security. With over 18 years of experience, Chuck possesses numerous specialized certifications in port security/anti-terrorism, radiation detection/mitigation, search and rescue, underwater search and recovery, incident command, ROV/sonar operations, boater safety, and advanced boat handling. Prior to his career in law enforcement, Chuck spent 6 years in the private sector of shipbuilding for the US Department of Defense.

Brian and Charles are well-connected, mission-experienced professionals who will provide local support and expertise to help customers find the right solutions for their needs. At Ocean Business in Southampton, team EvoLogics will be happy to connect US clients with the new Virginia office to build closer partnerships for upcoming projects.

EvoLogics Sonobot 5 vehicle and its new multibeam echosounder option

Robotics has solidified itself as an important pillar at EvoLogics, and the company is eager to be taking it further in 2023. The Sonobot 5 uncrewed surface vehicle has become an established product, with its serial production stable, reliable and scalable. Some of the configurations currently being discussed with customers are among the best and most technically capable the market has to offer. Object detection and collision avoidance are the Sonobot's unique advantages that the EvoLogics crew are happy to discuss at Ocean Business.

In 2023, EvoLogics overhauled the list of measurement system options available for the Sonobot 5 platform.

Ocean Business will mark the release of a new multibeam echosounder for the Sonobot 5 vehicle: the Evo Multibeam by Norbit (final product name pending).

Norbit’s high-quality echosounders have a proven track record in the industry. With advanced signal processing algorithms and high-quality components, they provide reliable and accurate measurements in a variety of underwater environments.

The Evo Multibeam by Norbit is a tailored solution for the Sonobot 5 platform and offers the advantages of multibeam riverbed mapping in a compact and lightweight design that seamlessly integrates with Sonobot 5.

Compared to a single-beam echosounder, the new multibeam option enables faster and more detailed bathymetric surveys with the Sonobot 5.

A choice of echosounder technology for the Sonobot 5 - single-beam or the new multibeam option - depends on the specific requirements of the survey project and the available budget.

While both single-beam and multibeam echosounders are used for underwater mapping applications, multibeam echosounders provide a wider swath of coverage and more detailed information about the seafloor, while single-beam echosounders are more cost-effective for smaller, shallower surveys. EvoLogics experts are readily available to go over the details of a particular application scenario to advise on the most effective solution for the task.

Object recognition demonstration session at Ocean Business

Sonobot 5 will be the highlight of the EvoLogics session of the Training & Demonstration Programme, set to take place on April 18th at 11:30.

The demo will focus on Underwater Search and Reconnaissance: with the Sonobot 5 vehicle in live action, the team will demonstrate EvoLogics object recognition technology for finding underwater objects at the Dockside Demo 2 area.

At the demonstration session, the team will perform a bathymetric scan with a single-beam echolot, as well as a side-scan sonar imaging of the area to give an example of the most common surveys performed with the Sonobot.

Would the attendees be able to guess the objects they’d see in the side-scan sonar imagery? It takes training and experience to recognize object shapes in a sonar picture, and the exercise aims to highlight the challenges that come with manually interpreting sonar output, especially for less experienced operators.

To showcase the object recognition technology, EvoLogics will then run the Sonobot 5 to automatically recognize the objects. The AI-based system is an extra module that runs directly onboard the Sonobot and analyses raw side-scan sonar output on the go. Live during the mission, objects of interest are detected and visually highlighted in the control software onshore.

This will provide attendees with a glimpse of the technology's ability to identify object shapes and contours in a matter of seconds, resulting in faster and more accurate surveys. Saving time, reducing the workload and pressure on the operator are the benefits AI object recognition brings to search and survey missions with Sonobot 5.

The system is available for Sonobot 5 customers and can be trained for new object categories, opening new possibilities for effective automation.

Integrated data and positioning networks

EvoLogics exhibition stand at Ocean Business 2023 will feature the full scope of the company’s products for acoustic communication and positioning, underwater smart robotics, and sensor systems.

Data and positioning networks form the backbone of EvoLogics' product ecosystem, enabling their ongoing work on novel robotics and providing the data framework for autonomous operations. EvoLogics will present the evolution of the core range of underwater acoustic modems and the recent hardware and software upgrades of the product line.

In Southampton, the team will report on the company’s concept for Coastguard, an integrated system to support and monitor critical maritime structures. Coastguard encompasses a network of seafloor and floating surface nodes, stationary and mobile sensor nodes to continuously monitor and inspect an area of underwater operations, delivering the data to a control center in real-time or collecting larger volumes for later retrieval. Example use cases include harbor surveillance and security, monitoring for offshore wind parks, offshore aquaculture, or deep-sea mining operations.

Quadroin, the bionic AUV with a penguin-based design, is EvoLogics’ another focal point, entering serial production in 2023 with a redesigned hardware platform for optimal performance.

EvoLogics is thrilled to join the industry community and showcase its solutions at Ocean Business 2023, with their European and US teams ready to take on challenging new projects together. They look forward to meeting and discussing EvoLogics solutions with the ocean industry and science community at stand M4.

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