Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 18, 2017) - Kraken Sonar (TSXV: PNG) (OTCQB: KRKNF), a marine technology company dedicated to the production and sale of software-centric sensors and underwater robotic systems, has been awarded its first "Robotics as a Service" contract by OEX Recovery Group. Later this month Kraken will deploy its ThunderFish Autonomous Underwater Vehicle and AquaPix Synthetic Aperture Sonar system into Lake Ontario.
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The goal of this project is to locate the resting place of the nine Avro Arrow free flight models launched over the lake in a series of tests between 1954 and 1957. In the past, privately funded missions have attempted to locate and recover the lost models, but all have failed due to inadequate funding, water depths, search area size and the amount of metal debris on the bottom.
The models, approximately 3 metres long, are one-eighth scale replicas of the famed flying jet, and were part of the final flight design tests done prior to the production of the CF-105 Arrow. The highly-advanced Canadian jet fighter and development program was abruptly cancelled by the government in 1959 with all materials related to the program destroyed, including 6 completed jet fighters.
Any models recovered will be housed at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa and the National Air Force Museum of Canada in Trenton, Ontario. The search and recovery program, a Canada 150 collaborative effort, is spearheaded by Osisko group companies Osisko Mining and Osisko Gold Royalties, in collaboration with their financial partners at National Bank, Bank of Montreal, Canaccord Genuity, Maxit Capital, Eight Capital and Northfield Capital.
David Shea, Kraken's VP of Engineering said, "We are very pleased to receive the first contract to validate our Robotics-as-a-Service business model - to build, own, operate and maintain our own vertically integrated robotic systems. Our AquaPix® MINSAS technology provides extremely high-resolution images and unparalleled area coverage rates in a compact, low power package. Onboard real-time processing enables on-the-fly beamforming and geo-referencing, which significantly reduces the overall processing timeline, a critical factor in these types of search and salvage applications."
Traditional sonar systems have a range and resolution limited by the size and frequency of their acoustic array. Kraken's AquaPix® SAS technology provides an order of magnitude increase in range and resolution by using sophisticated software and signal processing to "synthesize" an array up to 25x longer than the real array. In 2014, Kraken engineers and the company's AquaPix technology participated in the Canadian expedition team that discovered one of Sir John Franklin's ships that went missing in 1845 while searching for the Northwest Passage.
Karl Kenny, President & CEO stated: "During our 150th birthday, I can't think of a better example of how advanced Canadian ocean technology is being used to search and find advanced Canadian aerospace technology. This expedition is sure to be nostalgic for the countless fans of the Avro Arrow - which became a symbol of world-class Canadian technology. Continuing in the tradition of the Arrow, the entire Kraken team is very proud to engineer and build world-class Canadian underwater robotics technology."
While terms of the contract are confidential, the contract amount is less than $500,000.
John Burzynski, President and CEO of Osisko Mining Inc. and head of OEX Recovery Group Inc. stated: "As professional explorers in the mining business, we initiated this program about a year ago with the idea of bringing back a piece of lost Canadian history to the Canadian public. As individuals, as a company, as a group, and with our partners and our project participants in this search effort, we all have the same goal in mind: to find and return these beautiful pieces of Canadian technology to the public eye, during this anniversary year of our incredible country."
Kraken's shares are trading at $0.18, and with 90.8 million shares outstanding, the company is capitalized at $16.3 million.
For a more information, please visit the company's website www.krakensonar.com, or contact Greg Reid, CFO, at 416-818-9822 or email greid@krakensonar.com.
Investor relations is handled by Sean Peasgood of Sophic Capital, who can be reached at 416-565-2805 or email sean@sophiccapital.com.
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