OceanScan - Marine Systems & Technology, Lda
Porto University spin-off (2008) building the LAUV one-person-portable modular AUV, delivered to navies including Denmark's for mine hunting.
OceanScan - Marine Systems & Technology, Lda (OceanScan-MST) is a Portuguese company that designs, builds and sells the LAUV (Light Autonomous Underwater Vehicle), a one-person-portable AUV for oceanographic, hydrographic, environmental monitoring, underwater inspection, and security and surveillance work. The company is based at the UPTEC Polo Mar science park, Avenida da Liberdade, in Leça da Palmeira, Matosinhos, near Porto.
OceanScan-MST is a spin-off of the Underwater Systems and Technology Laboratory (LSTS) at the University of Porto. Its co-founders had been designing, building and operating underwater vehicles there since 2001. A LAUV prototype won a Portuguese innovation prize, and the team then founded the company in February 2008 as an independent private firm, keeping a strategic cooperation with the university. R&D and production share resources in-house: the company does design, high-level assembly, testing and quality control, and outsources mechanical parts and its own hardware designs to suppliers. It received ISO 9001:2015 certification (certificate PT18/06433) on 28 May 2018 for the design and production of autonomous underwater vehicles and systems.
The standard LAUV is a 15 cm diameter vehicle, 115 to 230 cm long depending on configuration and weighing 15 to 35 kg in air, rated to 100 m depth. It reaches up to 5 knots and typically runs for more than 8 hours at 3 knots. Specific configurations run for more than 48 hours at 2 knots, and in 2018 the company announced a configuration with more than 60 hours of endurance. Lithium-ion batteries recharge in under two hours. Standard navigation is GPS, an AHRS and a depth sensor, and standard communications are Wi-Fi and GSM/HSDPA. Design features include flexible fins and antenna mast, an external ballast rail for switching between fresh and salt water, a USB data stick in the nose for fast data offload, and a forward-looking echosounder for obstacle avoidance.
The LAUV is modular. Navigation options include Doppler velocity logs from LinkQuest, Nortek or Teledyne RDI (with optional ADCP current profiling), a tactical-grade FOG-based IMU, and LBL or USBL acoustic positioning. Communications options are Iridium SBD satellite messaging and acoustic modems. Sonar and imaging payloads include side-scan sonars from Imagenex, DeepVision, Blueprint, Klein and EdgeTech; an Imagenex multibeam echosounder; a BlueView MB2250 for micro-bathymetry and nadir gap filling; and a high-sensitivity camera with LED lighting. Water-column sensors include CTD, sound velocity, turbidity, chlorophyll, rhodamine, fluorescein, pH, dissolved oxygen, redox and oil, plus advanced options such as a MicroRider turbulence probe, digital holographic particle imaging and a magnetometer.
The vehicles are operated with Neptus, a command-and-control interface based on the open-source LSTS toolchain from the University of Porto that covers mission planning, simulation, execution and post-mission review for one or several vehicles. The Manta Gateway is a battery-powered communications hub that links Wi-Fi, acoustic modem, GSM, Iridium and GPS so that several operators can control several vehicles, and a smartphone app allows tele-operation.
Navies are a major customer group. In January 2022 the company delivered three LAUVs to the Danish Navy at the Frederikshavn naval base under a framework agreement with the Danish Ministry of Defence Acquisition and Logistics Organisation (DALO). These units were configured for mine hunting with a Klein dual-frequency side-scan sonar, an iXblue inertial navigation system and a Nortek DVL. The Netherlands Ministry of Defence has used several LAUV configurations to explore networked multi-vehicle operations, and OceanScan-MST demonstrated the LAUV at the Belgian Navy's 2017 North Sea unmanned mine-countermeasures trials. The company has exhibited at every Oceanology International since 2008.
OceanScan-MST also takes part in collaborative R&D. It coordinates the WAVY-NOS drifter-based nearshore observation project, funded by EEA Grants through Portugal's Directorate-General for Maritime Policy, and the CoMap Norwegian-Portuguese project on collaborative AUV and ASV bathymetric mapping. It is also a partner in the EU UnderSec maritime-security project (from October 2023) and the REMARO training network on reliable AI for underwater robots. Its WAVY drifter buoys came out of this research.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
More related news
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
-
7
Suzy Teele’s Mission at ARM Institute RobotToday · Oct 13, 2026
- 8
- 9
- 10
-
11
OCEANS 2027 Aberdeen: June 21-24, P&J Live RobotToday · Oct 06, 2026
-
12
XPONENTIAL 2027: May 17-20, Miami Beach RobotToday · Oct 05, 2026
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
Contact OceanScan - Marine Systems & Technology, Lda
WEBSITE
https://www.oceanscan-mst.com/PHONE
+351 220 301 576HEADQUARTERS
Portugal
Company Facts
Founded
2008
Primary Role
Manufacturer
Company Size
-
Primary Region
Europe
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
-
Funding Total
-
Certifications & Memberships
Keywords
- OceanScan - Marine Systems & Technology
- Lda
- LAUV
- Light Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
- man-portable AUV
- Neptus command and control
- LSTS toolchain
- Manta Gateway
- side-scan sonar AUV
- mine countermeasures
- multi-vehicle operations
- WAVY drifters
- Manufacturer
- Unmanned Marine Vehicle
- AUV
- Defense & Security
- Education & Research
