USE Network launch I UAV Works VALAQ l Cable harnesses l USVs insight l Xponential 2020 update l MARIN AUV l Suter Industries TOA 288 l Vitirover l AI systems l Vtrus ABI

20 K ongsberg Maritime has a long history of pioneering new aquatic technologies, perhaps the best known of which is the Hugin AUV, which in collaboration with the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment drew on what were at the time many new fields of research. The company recently unveiled its newest product, a launch and recovery system (LARS) for the Hugin, which has been conceived to overcome the risks and costs associated with conventional methods of deploying and recovering UUVs. Its development was overseen and coordinated by Bjorn Gjelstad, Kongsberg Maritime’s marine robotics r&d manager. His work on the LARS represents his latest achievement in a career spanning many of the most important inventions in hydrographic operations of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He has been at the centre of Norway’s marine technology research efforts since his university days, in the late 1970s, but he says he has been inspired by maritime work since childhood. Early life “My grandfather was born in 1879 and worked in shipyards until about 1917,” Gjelstad recounts. “He, my father and my uncle were engineers in the maritime, mechanical and electrical fields, and contributed to the family business for most of their working lives, mainly developing equipment that would make ship-side work easier. “So as a young boy I spent some of my spare time with them in their work, and that inspired me later to study marine technology and engineering.” Kongsberg Maritime’s manager of robotics r&d tells Rory Jackson how his background has led to him helping to develop cutting-edge marine technologies Nautical knowhow June/July 2020 | Unmanned Systems Technology The launch and recovery system is being developed by Gjelstad’s team for a safer and easier method of deploying and recovering the Hugin AUV (Images courtesy of Kongsberg Maritime)