Displayed for the first time at IDEX/NAVDEX 2025, the acoustic buoy developed dubbed NiKA by the Canadian company Metocean comes at a time where ASW is a main focus among navies across the world.
MetOcean displayed the NiKA buoy – which is in its final stages of development – for the first time at IDEX 2025 in Abu Dhabi learned Naval News. This project is ongoing for several years now and follows an internal decision to update one of their existing product that listened for environmental noise – PABLO, and to follow market trends and demand. NiKA should be officially unveiled “very soon” says Mr. Creighton, Director of marketing and communications at MetOcean.
Focusing on maritime surveillance and anti-submarine warfare, NiKA is an autonomous buoy deployable from a ship which dives up to a pre-programmed depth to conduct real-time passive acoustic to detect and possibly classify an adversary’s acoustic signature. Once the buoy reaches its limited programmed depth, it starts its navigation in the water column to record at different depths. Its diving and surfacing is possible thanks to the use of a proprietary buoyancy engine displacing oil to move up and down in the water column. When the buoy pops up to the surface, it sends the collected acoustic data, and then dives again for other cycles depending on its programming. The systems can also be anchored to stay in position and only pop up if an “anomaly” is detected. The data are communicated to a control center based on shore or at sea via iridium satellite communication. Certified to dive up to 1000m depth, the buoy could record and detect then any submarine activities.
If Metocean provides the platform with their own software for the machine-man interface for the control center, another software is needed for the classification, which can be implemented in theirs. It allows the Navy to have their own acoustic signature sets without the company having an eye on it, thus preserving the confidentiality of these very sensitive data.
According to Metocean representative present at the exhibition, some important tests were just completed at different locations including off Taiwan. The company were among the winners in the 2023 NATO innovation challenge and hopes to participate to the next NATO REPMUS to further demonstrate its capabilities.
In a tough hybrid seabed warfare context, especially present in the Baltic Sea and in the South China Sea, Metocean representative says the NiKA is perfectly relevant to assist countries in implementing acoustic barriers where the device could be placed in strategic locations such as straits, closed shallow seas etc.This solution can also protect and safeguard critical underwater infrastructures. NiKA would complement in-service sonobuoys, fixed and towed-array sonars as well as UUVs such as underwater gliders.
NiKA buoy seemed to have aroused great interests across the Atlantic especially with the U.S. and Royal Canadian Navy, but also in the Indo-Pacific with India and Taiwan.
