Cathx Ocean Limited
Irish maker (founded 2009) of the Hunter II, Vanguard and INKA Iris subsea laser and imaging systems, plus Clarity edge-AI software for AUVs and ROVs.
Cathx Ocean Limited is an Irish company that develops subsea imaging and laser measurement sensors, edge-computing hardware and data-processing software for underwater vehicles. Adrian Boyle, its chief executive, founded the company in 2009; he holds a PhD in lasers and non-linear optics from Trinity College Dublin. Cathx is based at the M7 Business Park in Newhall, Naas, County Kildare, and has sales and support phone lines in Ireland, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. The rest of the senior team is chief operating officer Richie Close, chief financial officer Rob Gibson and chief technology officer David O'Reilly.
The sensors are built for AUVs, ROVs, towed frames and ROTVs. Hunter II, the company's fastest integrated imaging and measurement system for AUVs, combines a 4K colour camera, LED strobe panels and a green laser profiler. It takes UHD stills of 4096 x 2304 pixels at up to 7 frames per second, or HD stills at up to 30. Its laser records up to 120,000 points and 60 lines per second. It works at heights of up to 7 m, covering a swath of the same width, at survey speeds of up to 5 knots. Vanguard is a stereo imaging and laser system with two sensors for ROVs. It needs as few as two cables to integrate and three cases to mobilise. Sentry is a single-camera stills system for towed frames and small ROVs.
In April 2025, at UDT 2025, Cathx launched INKA Iris, its smallest camera and its first designed for shallow water. INKA Iris is a 5K imaging system rated to 1,000 m. It processes data and runs AI models on board and stores 2 TB, about 70 hours of mission data. It is aimed at mid-size AUVs and compact ROVs. It is also the first sensor built on INKA, Cathx's embedded processing platform. A standalone INKA Node processor is announced as well: it is rated to 6,000 m, uses NVIDIA Jetson computing and holds 8 TB.
Clarity, the company's main software product, runs on the vehicle. It processes image, laser and third-party sensor data in real time, hosts data agents and AI models written by Cathx or by customers, and raises events during a mission. Its modules include pipeline tracking and freespan detection. CX Observer is a 3D inspection application that combines colour point clouds with UHD images. Onshore engineers use it to find small defects and to track changes from year to year. Cathx's Fast Digital Inspection (FDI) method, offered for seabed and for structures, relies on continuous high-speed data collection. The company cites a seabed survey that took 6 days instead of the 36 needed with conventional methods.
Cathx serves defence, offshore energy and marine research customers. For navies, it moves detection and classification onto the vehicle for autonomous mine countermeasures, tracks subsea cables and pipelines, and supports adaptive mission planning for multi-vehicle operations. It says it works with leading vehicle manufacturers on these features. Its published case studies include structure surveys for BP with Oceaneering and Wood that were completed six times faster than traditional inspections, and trials in turbid water with DOF Subsea. Others cover habitat mapping off the Irish coast with MERC Environmental, Nephrops stock surveys with Ireland's Marine Institute, and seafloor change monitoring with the Alfred Wegener Institute. In the Black Sea MAP project, Cathx imaging was used with MMT and Reach Subsea to reveal and model ancient shipwrecks.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
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Contact Cathx Ocean Limited
WEBSITE
https://cathxocean.com/PHONE
+353 45 252786HEADQUARTERS
Ireland
Company Facts
Founded
2009
Primary Role
Manufacturer
Company Size
-
Primary Region
Europe
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
-
Funding Total
-
Keywords
- Cathx Ocean Limited
- subsea laser profiling
- Hunter II
- Vanguard
- INKA Iris
- INKA Node
- Clarity edge software
- CX Observer
- Fast Digital Inspection
- underwater stills imaging
- pipeline freespan detection
- Manufacturer
- Component Supplier
- Software/Algorithm
- Perception & Vision
- Compute & Chips
- Control & Software
- Defense & Security
- Oil
- Gas & Energy
