Saab Seaeye, which has main bases in Fareham, Hampshire and Houston in the US and claims to be the world’s largest manufacturer of electric ROVs, is to provide Israel’s University of Haifa with a Leopard system as a key component for its recently-opened deep sea research centre.
Academic sources say it will serve the entire Israeli marine research community via a national consortium of universities, colleges and government research institutes with environmental monitoring and marine archaeology among various planned research operations.
The order coincides with others for seven Saab Falcon ROVs from a number of unnamed clients engaged in hydrographic, oil and gas, renewables and acquaculture activities. Equipped with five thrusters and an intelligent distributed control facility, versatile systems permit tools and sensors to be easily added or changed according to specific user needs.
By David Goodfellow
