ECA Group today opens its brand new factory in Ostend, Belgium, in the presence of Hilde Crevits, Deputy Prime Minister of the Flemish Government and Admiral Hofman, Chief of Defence. This state-of-the-art facility will be dedicated to the production and support of the Mine Warfare Drones of ECA Group, one of the world leaders in Mine Counter Measures solutions.

Modus, a North East subsea services company, which is pioneering the next generation of subsea robotics, has commissioned its control room in Darlington, the culmination of a £24m investment programme. The company welcomed the Right Honourable Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP, Secretary of State for International Trade and Darlington MP Peter Gibson, to officially open the state-of-the-art control centre at its headquarters.

The development and deployment of compact ROVs (remotely operated underwater vehicles) in recent years have immensely helped users overcome the greater technical difficulties and efficiency issues involving professional small-scale underwater tasks, especially in 4K filming, operational work, and deep-sea inspections. While the ROVs' capacity in shooting, mobility, and power is continuously improving, the ability to accurately and actively lock onto subjects visually underwater remained a challenging bottleneck to breakthrough within the industry. In light of recent breakthroughs and developments, QYSEA Technology has launched an AI-based vision platform allowing its FIFISH Underwater Robots to achieve precise underwater active visual locking capabilities.

Exhibitors from around the world have gathered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to showcase the innovative undersea technologies that will support maritime operations in the underwater domain over the coming decade.

Forum Energy Technologies (FET) has delivered two work-class remotely operated vehicle (ROV) sales to Brazilian marine engineering company Oceanica Engenharia e Consultoria Limitada (Oceanica) to support its deepwater intervention operations and strengthen its offering to the energy sector.

South Devon College has acquired two Uncrewed Surface Vessels (USVs) that will give marine autonomy students at its new Marine Academy hands-on experience of remote vessel operation. The USVs were unveiled at the Academy’s opening ceremony in Dartmouth in April, a milestone moment in the history of South Devon College, which is celebrating its 90th birthday this year.

SeeByte has been awarded a contract by Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) agency to provide a range of command and control, autonomy and software design services to the UK Ministry of Defence in support of all Mine Hunting Capability (MHC) and related programmes.

Forcys brings to market world-changing solutions from leading technology partners Chelsea Technologies, EIVA, Sonardyne, Voyis and Wavefront. Backed by over fifty years of experience, Forcys offers the global maritime defence sector, remote, autonomous and networked control capabilities that deliver integrated situational awareness to customers in the underwater domain.

Equinor has, on behalf of the Haltenbanken West Unit and Halten East licences, awarded Transocean Spitsbergen a firm drilling programme consisting of nine wells and optionsfor another two. The value of the contract is estimated at around NOK 2.4 billion, including the options.

The ability to carry out a mission with a combat submarine on the other side of the world within 24 hours has now become a reality with the NEYK N3 built by Ocean Submarine. The world’s most manoeuvrable submarine features state-of-the-art-technology that allows it to complete missions even when faced with cyber-attacks.

Rovco has further bolstered its fleet to support its growth in offshore wind. The leading provider of offshore subsea and survey solutions has signed a charter party agreement with Glomar Offshore for the Glomar Worker dynamic positioning (DP) vessel.

Ocean Floor Geophysics, Inc (OFG) is pleased to announce that it has completed its acquisition of NCS SubSea, which provides ultra-high resolution 3D seismic data to the oil and gas and new energy markets via their market-leading P-Cable system. With the addition of P-Cable technology, OFG now provides the broadest range of marine geophysical data technology and services available in the offshore market today, offering the widest range of sensor solutions from surface, AUV and ROV platforms, combined with unique multiphysics processing, integration, and interpretation capabilities.

Marine robotics technology specialist Greensea Systems Inc. (Greensea) today announces the launch of Bayonet Ocean Vehicles, a new company created to develop, manufacture, and distribute a line of amphibious robots recently acquired from C-2 Innovations Inc.

Defence leaders from European government and military forces will lead discussions at UDT 2022, when the undersea defence community reunites in Rotterdam on 7-9 June.

Cellula Robotics Ltd. has successfully completed the mid-life maintenance and upgrade to Fukada Salvage and Marine Works Co., Ltd. (Fukada)’s Unicorn-1 Seafloor Drill, based on Cellula’s CRD100 Seafloor Drill. The upgrades, including improvements for increased automation and a new user interface, incorporates many lessons learnt from the last six years of offshore work, resulting in greater operational efficiency, functionality and lifespan of the drill.

Saipem SpA, Havfram Holding AS and HVAS Invest Kappa AS (a holding company controlled by HitecVision) have signed a non-binding agreement to evaluate a potential collaboration in the development and construction of offshore windfarms.

Kraken Robotics Inc., Canada’s Ocean Company, is pleased to announce new contracts valued at more than $1.6 million for its AquaPix® Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS). Deliveries will occur in 2022. Due to confidentiality reasons the customers cannot be named.

The US is now committed to delivering a hybrid fleet that will be necessary for the Navy to meet emerging security concerns and compete and win in an era of great power competition by expanding and developing a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV), and unmanned surface vessels (USV).