Cerulean Sonar
"Advanced Technology Sensibly Priced"
Minnesota maker of low-cost Omniscan imaging sonars, ROV Locator and Omnitrack USBL, Tracker 650 DVL and Surveyor 240 multibeam for small ROVs and USVs.
Cerulean Sonar is a Minnesota maker of low-cost acoustic imaging, positioning and bathymetry products for small ROVs, AUVs and uncrewed surface vessels, based at 2105 Daniels Street in Long Lake, west of Minneapolis. The company is a spin-out of Digi Labs, a Minnesota product incubator whose R&D shop was set up by Larry Lukis, the retired founder, CTO and chairman of Proto Labs. One of the incubator's first projects was an acoustic positioning system for underwater vehicles, and parallel acoustic developments grew into Cerulean Sonar, which LinkedIn lists as founded in 2019 with a team of 2 to 10 people, including former senior Proto Labs engineers. Lukis was also an early investor in marine ventures including Blue Robotics, JM Robotics, Riptide, Open Water Power and SeaTrac. The company's stated mission is to use recent advances in microelectronics and digital signal processing to offer sonar that is "sensibly priced", and its products are typically listed with prices online.
The imaging range is the Omniscan family of 450 kHz sonars, which use a single narrow, tall beam and rely on Cerulean's SonarView software to paint images in real time from the vehicle's position and heading. The Omniscan 450 SS is a long-range side-scan unit with separate electronics to be housed in the vehicle (from USD 2,590); the Omniscan 450 FS is a forward-looking version in a single enclosure with Ethernet and power, offered in 100 m and 300 m depth ratings (from USD 2,490); and the Omniscan 450 Compact suits small ROVs and includes an Ethernet switch for daisy-chaining two further devices. The Omniscan 3D 450 SS adds a 16-channel receive array that calculates the vertical angle of every target and produces 3D point clouds in real time, positioned between side-scan sonar and multibeam echosounders (from USD 7,990); an upgrade kit converts existing Omniscan units.
For positioning, the ROV Locator (ROVL) family provides USBL tracking to 300 m. The Mk II synchronises clocks via GNSS on both ends, while the Mk III uses duplex acoustic communication so no timebase synchronisation is needed and the system can stay submerged indefinitely without range drift. The flagship Omnitrack USBL is a ready-to-deploy topside assembly with an integrated dual-GNSS compass, available in tethered and Wi-Fi versions (from USD 8,990). The Tracker 650 DVL (USD 2,990) supplies velocity data for position hold and tracking, is rated to 300 m depth and 5 knots, uses the host vehicle's IMU for attitude and works out of the box with BlueOS and ArduSub/MAVLink vehicles.
Bathymetry products include the Surveyor 240-16 multibeam echosounder (USD 4,990), a 240 kHz unit with a transmit beam of about 4 by 80 degrees, a 16-element receive array, angle-of-arrival processing that resolves targets to under one degree and a built-in IMU, designed for small USVs such as the Blue Robotics BlueBoat and depths beyond 50 m. The Sounder S500 (USD 890) is a CHIRP single-beam echosounder with a 300 m-rated transducer, a beam of about 5 degrees and around 100 m range. Subsea and topside network hubs and a 300 m-rated GNSS module complete the range. SonarView runs on Windows, macOS and Linux or in a browser when served from the vehicle, and the node.js SonarLink server is available as a BlueOS extension.
Cerulean lists ROV manufacturing partners Blue Robotics, Blueye, CHASING, JM Robotics and QYSEA, and system integrators such as SPH Engineering in Latvia, which has put the Surveyor 240-16 and side-scan sonars on drone-borne payloads, and Marine Thinking in Canada, which integrates the Omniscan 450 SS and Surveyor on the BlueBoat. Its distributor network covers more than 50 resellers in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. Reported uses include imaging the early-1900s tug Hercules in Lake Minnetonka, identification of the Steinbrenner wreck in Lake Superior with an Omniscan FS, and disaster-response work in India by distributor Banergy. Target applications are infrastructure inspection, scientific survey, search and recovery and autonomous marine operations.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
More related news
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
Contact Cerulean Sonar
WEBSITE
https://ceruleansonar.com/HEADQUARTERS
United States
Company Facts
Founded
2019
Primary Role
Component Supplier
Company Size
-
Primary Region
North America
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
-
Funding Total
-
