ATLAS North America LLC (ANA) has acquired Virginia-based firm Marine Sonic Technology (MSTL) in an asset deal.
Terms of the transaction between MSTL and the Germany-based subsidiary of ATLAS ELEKTRONIK GmbH were not disclosed.
Sergio Diehl, president and the CEO of ATLAS North America LLC, stated: "ATLAS North America’s acquisition of Marine Sonic Technology creates for the ATLAS Group a greater worldwide stake within the sonar survey, mine warfare and the fast-growing autonomous vehicle markets.
MSTL’s core competencies with high-resolution sonar technology are highly-synergistic to the ATLAS Group’s existing capabilities and with the addition of these new side scan products, expand ATLAS’ total sonar product offerings.
For ANA, the new combined facility provides the critical US-based production and manufacturing facility required to affix the "Made in the USA" label on SeaFox mine neutralization vehicles, and other planned products for the US Navy Mine Warfare Forces."
Martin H. Wilcox, president and principal research engineer at Marine Sonic Technology, Ltd., added: "This acquisition will allow both organizations to enlarge and improve their research, development and manufacturing capabilities in the realm of marine technology.
"The entire Marine Sonic organization is looking forward to working with our new colleagues at Atlas North America."
Marine Sonic Technology, Ltd. is a world leader in the development and manufacturing of ultra-high resolution side scan sonar systems. It offers the highest resolution currently available at 1800 kHz,
MSTL has continued to pioneer new advancements in sonar since its inception in the late 1980’s, from the early sonic high-accuracy ranging and positioning system (SHARPS) to the latest ARC Scout which is the smallest dual-simultaneous digital CHIRP-embedded system capable of producing near-photographic imaging.
Servicing industries around the globe such as oil and gas, oceanic and marine construction, search and rescue, law enforcement, military and defense, and anywhere accurate ultra-high resolution underwater imaging is required.
ATLAS North America was established in September 2010. ANA serves the US market with a specific focus on undersea warfare and unmanned vehicles.
It’s office is based close to the US Navy’s Atlantic Fleet bases and Washington DC for enhanced cus-tomer service.
ANA is capable of providing any of the ATLAS Group products, as well as a broad range of associated technical and logistics support services for the entire product life-cycle.
The primary goal of ANA is to introduce the full range of ATLAS products into the US defense market and to provide technical and logistics support to those ATLAS products already in the US inventory.
The initial focus is on ATLAS line of remotely-operated and autonomous underwater vehicles (ROVs/AUVs), for example SeaFox, SeaCat and SeaOtter.
ANA is currently executing mine neutralization contracts with the SeaFox UUV based on an urgent op-erational need statement (UONS) for the US Navy.
The installations are in the avenger class mine countermeasure vessel, the MH-53E mine countermeas-ure helicopters and with the US Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal community.
More importantly, ANA, with access to the ATLAS Group systems fielded throughout NATO and the Rest-Of-World Navies, can socialize these incredible warfare capabilities within the US Defense Market.
Many of these completed, fielded and modular systems may be applicable to the US Navy S=surface, submarine and expeditionary warfare communities.
