Dive Technologies Completes Successful Sea Trials with Kraken’s Pressure Tolerant Batteries

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland and Labrador, Oct. 28, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kraken Robotics Inc. (TSX-V: PNG, OTCQB: KRKNF), Canada’s Ocean Company, is pleased to announce that Quincy, Massachusetts based Dive Technologies Inc. (“Dive”) recently completed successful sea trials of a Large Displacement Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (LD-AUV) which was powered by Kraken’s pressure tolerant batteries. Kraken expects further contracts with Dive for additional batteries in 2020 and beyond.

Kraken and Dive Technologies entered into an agreement in August 2020 whereby Kraken agreed to supply subsea batteries for the LD-AUV. Under the terms of the agreement, Kraken also acquired a license to build two Dive LD-AUVs for use in Kraken’s growing Robotics-as-a-Service (RaaS) business. Production of Kraken’s first Dive LD-AUV is currently underway with the first unit being manufactured in the United States. Kraken expects that it will be delivered to Kraken’s Unmanned Maritime Vehicle Facility in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia for sea trials in the spring of 2021.

Dive is led by an experienced team of engineers and managers with a history of AUV product development and program management with the US Navy and major US defense contractors. Dive’s current team has extensive experience designing, building and operating AUVs for domestic and international commercial and defense customers. Dive’s commercial LD-AUV is designed to support long duration missions at full ocean depths and is uniquely positioned to add significant value to Kraken’s Robotics-as-a-Service data collection business.

Kraken and Dive intend to leverage each other’s expertise to bring industry leading AUV solutions to the rapidly growing subsea data acquisition market. For Dive, the company is focused on delivering capable, flexible and reliable large displacement AUVs to defense and commercial customers at a reasonable price with leading commercial-off-the-shelf technology from companies such as Kraken. For Kraken, the company gains access to a large diameter, long mission duration AUV for use in Kraken’s emerging RaaS business. It should be noted that the DIVE LD-AUV is significantly different than Kraken’s ThunderFish XL (TFXL) AUV which is being internally developed by Kraken. TFXL is a rectangular, hovering AUV being developed for subsea resident applications versus the Dive LD-AUV which is geared towards long range, long endurance survey missions.