Major Contract for Hydroid Inc.

Hydroid Inc. announced today that they have recently received a multi-year contract from the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence for ten (10) REMUS Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) systems.
Hydroid has teamed with QinetiQ and Babcock Design & Technology on the Ministry of Defence contract. QinetiQ will play a major role in the provision of logistic and service support, utilizing its expertise in UUV technology to maintain and service the vehicles and its waterside trials facility for training, testing and acceptance. QinetiQ will also play a major role in all of the in-country service and support requirements over the five-year Contractor Logistic Support period following acceptance into service of the AUV systems early in 2006.
In addition to undertaking hydrographic surveys and environmental monitoring for the Royal Navy, REMUS can be deployed in a general search and salvage role in support of humanitarian operations involving both military and civilian authorities. REMUS was selected by the DPA to provide a VSW Mine Countermeasures (MCM) capability following a thorough and competitive procurement process, which considered operational effectiveness, safety, support and whole-life costs. The REMUS systems that will be delivered to the Ministry of Defence will be transitioned into the Royal Navy for fleet use. This contract represents the first time a navy outside of the United States is procuring systems not for evaluation, but rather, for fleet use to conduct mine countermeasure activities.