Page 56: of Marine Technology Magazine (October 2020)

People & Companies

News of Note from Around the Industry “CHASMAI” Leopards HII Breaks Ground

Ocean In? nity

NSRI

HII Photo

Pictured (L to R): Robert Brown, getting it to market. Dubbed CHAS-

Leopards Integrated in president of Robert Brown & As-

MAI, the tool is designed to provide a

Ocean In? nity Fleet sociates; Hampton Mayor Donnie clear indication of the potential com-

Ocean In? nity selected the Saab

Tuck; Governor Ralph Northam; Andy mercial viability of early stage technol-

Seaeye Leopard to complement its

Green, president of HII’s Technical ogy in the subsea industry that enables ‘Armada’ ? eet of unmanned surface

Solutions; and Commerce and Trade both innovators and investors. robot vessels. The Leopard work-class

Secretary Brian Ball.

By measuring the viability of a tech- underwater vehicles will be deployed nical concept through analysis of vari- from Ocean In? nity’s initial 13 en- of-the-art facility with a high-tech ous factors including market conditions vironmentally sustainable unmanned digital manufacturing infrastructure, an and funding requirements, it take a vessels for a variety of offshore and agile space, recon? gurable for differ- systematic approach and helps identify coastal services. “The 3000 m Seaeye ent production and systems integration exactly where pioneering companies

Leopard was chosen not only because it projects and have precision machining should be focusing their efforts. is well suited to USV applications but capabilities, a surface ? nishing area and

NSRI believes it will be particularly more speci? cally because of its com- a dedicated welding space.

attractive to investors. parable capabilities to a conventional

HII partnered with the Virginia hydraulic work class vehicle, but with

Economic Development Partnership,

HII Breaks Ground on considerably less input power, meaning the city of Hampton and the Hampton

Unmanned Systems Center materially reduced carbon emissions,”

Roads Alliance to secure the project for “With U.S. Navy’s increasing said Dan Hook, Ocean In? nity.

Virginia. More than 250 jobs will be demand for UUVs and USVs, we are

Ocean In? nity’s Armada Fleet will be created and will enable collaboration committed to investing in and expand- operated and monitored from onshore with HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding ing our unmanned systems capabili- control centres based in Southampton division, which has advanced undersea ties,” said Andy Green, Huntington

UK, Austin Texas USA and a location

Ingalls Industries’ EVP and president of system engineering capabilities.

soon to be ? nalised in Asia. Construc- “The new campus complements our

Technical Solutions. “Our new Un- tion of the ? eet is underway and is current facilities in Massachusetts, manned Systems Center of Excellence expected to be operational early next

Florida and Washington that have will ensure we can continue to provide year.

been delivering marine robotics to the our customers with the most advanced

Navy for nearly 20 years,” said Duane autonomous systems across all class “CHASMAI” aims to Acceler-

Fotheringham, president, Technical sizes.” With that, HII broke ground ate Tech Commercialization

Solutions’ Unmanned Systems business on a new Unmanned Systems Center

Strathclyde University has endorsed group. “In order to manufacture and of Excellence in Hampton, which will a methodology developed by NSRI support large and extra-large UUVs, include two buildings totaling more (National Subsea Research Institute) the size of the manufacturing opera- than 150,000 sq. ft., constructed on to accelerate the commercializaton tion needs to increase signi? cantly. the 20-acre campus and purpose-built of technology in support of the green

This new facility will give us the space for unmanned systems prototyping, recovery. NSRI developed a way of and infrastructure we need to scale our production and testing.

measuring commercial viability of a operations to meet the needs of our

The center is designed to be a state- technical innovation to help fast-track 56 October 2020

MTR #8 (50-63).indd 56 10/9/2020 11:10:09 AM