About Coda Octopus Group

Coda Octopus Group, Inc., through its wholly owned subsidiaries, sells technology solutions to the subsea and underwater markets. Segments The company operates through two segments, Marine Engineering Business and Marine Technology Business. The company’s Marine Technology Business (‘Products Business’, ‘Products Operations’ or ‘Products Segment’) is a technology solution provider to the subsea and underwater market. It owns key proprietary technology, including real time volumetric imaging sonar technology and diving technology, both of which are applicable to the underwater defense and commercial markets. All innovation, design, development and manufacturing of the company’s technology and solutions are performed within the company. The company’s imaging sonar technology products and solutions marketed under the name of Echoscope and Echoscope PIPE are used primarily in the underwater construction market, offshore wind energy industry (offshore renewables), and offshore oil and gas, complex underwater mapping, salvage operations, dredging, bridge inspection, navigation of underwater hazard, port security, mining, fisheries, commercial and defense diving, and marine sciences sectors. The company’s diving technology marketed under the name ‘CodaOctopus DAVD’ (Diver Augmented Vision Display) addresses the global defense and commercial diving markets. It has the potential to radically change how diving operations are performed globally because it delivers real time information simultaneously to the divers underwater and their surface-based dive supervisors. It also allows diving operations to be performed in zero visibility water conditions, which is a safety challenge for diving operations. The Marine Technology Business operates thorough the company’s wholly owned subsidiaries, such as Coda Octopus Products Ltd (UK), Coda Octopus Products A/S (Denmark, Coda Octopus Products, Inc (Orlando) and Coda Octopus Products (India) Private Limited (India). The company’s Marine Engineering Businesses (‘Engineering Business’, ‘Engineering Operations’, or ‘Services Segment’) are suppliers of embedded solutions and sub-assemblies, which they design and manufacture and sell into mission critical integrated defense systems, such as the Close-In-Weapons System (CIWS). The Services Segment established its business in 1977 and has been supporting a number of significant defense programs for over 40 years, including Raytheon’s CIWS and Northrop Grumman’s Mine Hunting Systems Program. The Services Segment’s business model entails designing sub-assembly prototypes, which are utilized in broader defense programs. These prototypes contracts typically lead to contracts for the manufacture, repair and upgrade of these sub-assemblies. The company is the sole source for the parts that it designs and supplies into these programs. Coda Octopus Colmek, Inc. and Coda Octopus Martech Ltd, qualify as a small business. This opens opportunity under state requirements to collaborate with Prime Defense Contractors on these programs. A significant part of the revenues generated by the Marine Engineering Business is usually highly concentrated and are derived from a small number of prime defense contractors, such as Raytheon or Northrop. The Services Segment operates through the company’s wholly owned subsidiaries, Coda Octopus Colmek, Inc (‘Colmek’) based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Coda Octopus Martech Limited (‘Martech’) based in Dorset, the United Kingdom. Marine Technology Business The company’s Marine Technology Business develops proprietary solutions for both the commercial and defense subsea market. The range of its solutions are complementary and include Geophysical Systems; GNSS-Aided Navigation Systems (Attitude and Positioning Systems); Real Time Volumetric Imaging Sonar; and Diver Augmented Vision Display System. These products are sold, leased or rented into various marine sectors and include marine geophysical survey; offshore renewables (Wind Energy’); underwater construction, inspection and monitoring; diving companies; commercial and defense diving; salvage and decommissioning; oil and gas (‘O&G’); commercial fisheries; environmental, mammal and habitat monitoring; underwater defense applications; marine vehicles and robotics; port and harbor security, law enforcement and first responders; and research and education. Geophysical Range of Products The company’s geophysical systems (‘GEO’) range of products include geophysical data acquisition systems, processing and analysis software that are used primarily by survey companies, offshore renewable companies, research institutions, salvage companies. The company’s GEO range of products are used in conjunction with sidescan sonars to survey large areas and create images of the seabed, identify seabed boulders and objects, mark seabed type boundaries and identify existing subsurface structural features, geological layers, and/or buried debris. The company started its first innovation with this range of products and in fact was the first company to digitalize sidescan sonar data. The company’s GEO range is a strong brand in the geophysical market space. GPS aided Inertial Positioning Systems These are referred to as the company’s MOTION range of products and offer high accuracy GPS aided inertial positioning and attitude data, essential for all marine survey applications. The products are commonly bundled with the company’s GEO and real time sonar solutions offering its customers a seamless integration and support experience. Real Time Volumetric Imaging Sonars (ranging from 3D/4D, 5D and 6D) The company designs, develops and supplies the world’s most advanced series of real time volumetric imaging sonar. This is the culmination of over 25 years of research and development. This technology is protected by multiple patents. Furthermore, the company continues to file patents relating to its new and revolutionary sonars, the company’s 5-Dimensional (5D) and 6-Dimensional (6D) real time volumetric imaging sonars (marketed under the name Echoscope PIPE (Parallel Intelligent Processing Engine). The company’s sonar innovations are multi-tiered and extend to hardware, firmware and software, all of which co-exist and are co-dependent on each other. In other words, hardware, firmware and software operate as sub-systems to each other. 5D and 6D Sonars Innovations 5D and 6D sonars are new to the subsea market and constitute an innovation by the company. The company has several patent applications pending for these innovations. 5D Sonars (Echoscope PIPE) The advancement that the company has made with its 5D Sonars is the ability to process and utilize much more of the data that is acquired by the company’s volumetric imaging sonars. In the previous generation of the company’s sonars, due to the state of the art of processing generally, there was an upper limit to the quantity of the acquired data that could be processed and displayed by the sonar system. This meant that in the previous generation of sonars when a signal was emitted, it returned a single range and intensity value per beam. In the 5D Sonars, the company returns multiple range and intensity values (Full Time Series (FTS)) per beam. This new capability provides more information about the underwater environment. For example, it will give the user the ability to see multiple layers of soft target areas underwater, such as gas leaks and suspended sediment above the seabed all concurrently (not one or the other) or concurrent imagery of marine life, sea growth on installations and the installations themselves. FTS will deliver all range values per beam as opposed to either the First (First Above Threshold (FAT) or the strongest return (MAX) provided by the previous generation of Echoscope technology. The company’s 5D capability is protected by a recently granted patent (US 10,718,865 – which concerns a method of compressing beamforming sonar data and US 10,816,652, which concerns a method of compressing sonar data) and 10,718,865, which concerns a method of compressing beamformed sonar data. 6D Sonars (Echoscope PIPE) The company’s 6D Sonars process and utilize much more of the data acquired by the sonar. 6D Sonars generate multiple real time 3D Full Time Series Images. In the previous generation of sonars, the company could image and display one 3D Image in real time. the company’s PIPE technology generates multiple 3D Images simultaneously in real time using different sonar/acoustic parameters (such as frequency, range, field of view, pulse length and other acoustic filters or shading). The company’s new technology enables one sensor to provide different 3D/4D/5D/6D data sets (through multiple parallel processing capability) to different parts of the survey team operations in real time per their different operational requirements (thus consolidating the sensors and the associated costs and effectiveness of the solution). 6D Sonars can also record raw data that can be subject to PIPE Offline processing to generate unlimited data outputs. The company is not aware of any sonars that can offer either 5D or 6D Capability. Sonar Hardware During 2019, the company completed critical innovation and advancement milestones around the company’s core volumetric real time sonar technology. The company has now introduced the world’s first 5D and 6D series of volumetric imaging sonar technology. This new series of sonars are marketed under the brand name Echoscope PIPE (an acronym for Parallel Intelligent Processing Engine). The company’s 5D and 6D series of sonars herald a significant leap forward in real time subsea imaging as this inventive capability allows a single sonar to provide different parts of the survey operations with multiple real time data sets (as opposed to one 3D dataset) for each part of the survey teams’ requirements. Diver Augmented Vision Display (DAVD) System Funded by the Office of Naval Research (‘ONR’) through its Future Naval Capabilities (FNC) program, and in close collaboration with NAVSEA 00C3 and Naval Surface Warfare Center, Panama City Division (‘NSWC PCD’), the company has developed a diver see-through integrated information display system (DAVD). Sonar Software The company’s software development capability is an important part of the company’s strategy to maintain its lead in designing, manufacturing, and selling state-of-the-art real time volumetric imaging sonars and the company’s DAVD System. The company’s existing third generation (3G) Underwater Survey Explorer software used in conjunction with the company’s real time volumetric sonars, is a product. Because of technological advancements, including access to off the shelf components for more advanced processing of data (speed and size being factors), in 2016, the company started the process of re-conceiving and developing its new generation of top-end software for the company’s now much more advanced sonars. The company has now launched the company’s fourth-generation multi-sensor software platform, which is marketed under the name ‘4G USE’. The company has also filed several provisional patents around the company’s 4G USE, which is a multi-sensor platform allowing users to bring in and utilize a variety of sensor data, including sonar, positioning, camera, lidar, video processing and other sources of point cloud data and seamlessly merging above and below the water data captured from the sonar and camera. It is also the platform for the company’s DAVD software, and this is marketed under the brand 4G USE DAVD Edition. Geophysical Products and Solutions The Geophysical range of products are important for both Offshore Renewables and O&G. With the expansion of the markets into Offshore Renewables, the company will see an increase in the take up of this product suite, particularly in the global rental market. The company’s GeoSurvey and DA4G ranges are strong brands in these markets. The company started its business in 1994 designing and developing the GeoSurvey software and hardware package for acquisition and processing of sidescan sonar and sub-bottom profiler data. For over two decades, the company’s GeoSurvey has been an industry leading software package in the market for data acquisition and interpretation and provides feature rich solutions and productivity enhancing tools for the most exacting survey requirements. Designed specifically for sidescan and sub-bottom data acquisition, GeoSurvey has been purchased by numerous leading survey companies throughout the world. Geophysical Hardware These consist of a range of hardware solutions for field acquisition of sidescan sonar and sub-bottom profiler, which includes analog and digital interfaces compatible with all geophysical survey systems. In 2018, the company introduced its DA4G-USB product. This allows customers to integrate the DA4G hardware into their own PC configuration. Based on the CodaOctopus DA4G system, it offers the same functionality, robustness and ease of use. CodaOctopus DA4G is the fourth generation of the company’s successful DA series and is built on twenty years of knowledge, experience and innovation in supplying unparalleled products and service to the worldwide geophysical survey sector. These purpose-built, turn-key, systems incorporate the very latest hardware specifications and are designed and delivered to meet the demanding nature of offshore survey work. The CodaOctopus DA4G range consists of a number of options and is backed (like all the company’s products) with global service and support. This consists of an integrated suite of software that automates the tasks of analyzing, annotating and mosaicking complex data sets, thus ensuring faster and more precise results. Geophysical Software The company’s GeoSurvey software is supplied to complement the company’s DA4G hardware, offering field acquisition of sidescan sonar and sub-bottom profiler data. The company’s Survey Engine software product offers a more advanced post-processing solution for sidescan sonar and sub-bottom profiler data. Designed to streamline processing of very large data sets – many 100GBs – it offers comprehensive processing, interpretation, visualization, reporting and exporting functionality. Inertial Positioning and Attitude Measurement Systems (‘Motion Products’) The company’s Motion Products are Global Navigational Satellite System (referred to in the industry as ‘GNSS’ Aided Inertial Measurement Units) provide measurement data on the position and attitude of a vessel. This device provides real-time data on these measurements, which are applied to compensate for vessel movement in order to align sonar data and remove motion blur. New Generation of Motion Products The company has now completed the ground up development of the company’s new generation of Motion Products F280 Series for accurate position, heading, pitch, roll and yaw at sea. The new F280 Series is based on more advanced technology and is more accurate than the company’s F180 series. The new technology is much more scalable towards future development of new product variants. The F280 Series is highly complementary to the company’s real time volumetric sonar series and they are packaged together to provide a more comprehensive solution to the company’s customers. The F280 is sold with and without the company’s sonar series. Sales and Marketing The company markets its products primarily through the company’s internal sales team, website, industry events such as trade shows, webinars, industry relationships and agents in foreign countries, such as Japan, China and Korea. In addition, the company has a network of non-exclusive independent global sales agents. In 2023, a significant part of the company’s business plan budget is allocated to business development, sales and marketing, which will include recruiting new staff for more direct sales and business development. Coda Octopus Products Limited has the requisite accreditations for its business including being Lloyds Register accredited to ISO 9001:2015 and Cyber Essentials certification. Marine Engineering Businesses (‘Services Segment’) The company’s Marine Engineering Businesses comprise Coda Octopus Colmek, Inc. based in Salt Lake City and Coda Octopus Martech Limited based in the United Kingdom. These two operating entities supply engineered sub-assembly solutions which form part of mission critical integrated defense systems, test equipment, instrumentation, and the like. They operate as sub-contractors to prime defense contractors, and their engineering solutions are typically designed for integration into broader defense programs where high levels of reliability and quality are essential pre-requisites for securing and maintaining these agreements with their customers. Typically, the company prototypes subassemblies for these customers and after going through various acceptance tests, including first article inspection approvals, the company is given the manufacturing contracts. Many of these manufacturing contracts have a repeat orders profile which typically follows the life cycle of the defense program that is using the production part. In addition, the company is increasingly combining its engineering capabilities with the company’s product offerings. This enables the company to offer systems which are complete with installation and support to maximize the utilization of the company’s collective expertise to advance the company’s real time volumetric sonar technology. Coda Octopus Martech Limited (‘Martech’) Martech, which is U.K.-based, operates in the specialized niche of bespoke design and manufacturing services mainly to the United Kingdom defense and subsea industries. Its services are provided on a custom sub-contract basis where high quality and high integrity devices are required in small quantities. The company enjoys pre-approvals to allow it to be short-listed for certain types of government contracts. Much of the more significant business secured by Martech is through the formal government or government contractor tendering process. Coda Octopus Colmek, Inc. (‘Colmek’) Colmek, which is the U.S.A.-based, are suppliers of embedded solutions and sub-assemblies which they design and manufacture and sell into mission critical integrated defense systems, such as the Close-In-Weapons System (CIWS). This business was established 1977 and has been supporting several significant U.S. defense programs for over 40 years, including Raytheon’s CIWS and Northrop Grumman’s Mine Hunting Systems Program (AQS-24). Colmek’s business model entails designing sub-assembly prototypes for defense programs which typically lead to contracts for the manufacture, repair and upgrade of these sub-assemblies. The company is the sole source for the parts that the company supply into these programs. Intellectual Property The company has recently been awarded a patent which concerns a method of predicting and adjusting the laying of cable using sonar imaging. This is a significant patent for Offshore Renewables Market (Wind Energy), which is a rapidly increasing market sector and an important one for the company’s growth. The company’s Echoscope and Echoscope PIPE technology is used for real time monitoring of cable installations for offshore wind projects. Patents In 2022, the company added two new patents to its portfolio. Trademarks The company owns the registered trademarks listed below and they are used in conjunction with the products that it markets and sells: Coda, Octopus, CodaOctopus, CodaOctopus & Design, Octopus & Design, F180, F280, F280 Series, Echoscope, Echoscope 4G, Echoscope 5D, 5D Echoscope, Echoscope 6D, 6D Echoscope, Echoscope PIPE Ping-Pong Echoscope Sonar, Ping-Pong Echoscope, Ping-Pong Sonar, 4G Underwater Survey Explorer, 4G USE, Echoscope Sequencer, Survey Engine, Dimension, DAseries, GeoSurvey CodaOctopus Air, CodaOctopus Vantage; CodaOctopus UIS; CodaOctopus USE, Sentiris and Thermite. In addition, the company has registered several internet domain names, including www.codaoctopus.com; www.codaoctopusgroup.com; www.colmek.com and www.martechsystems.co.uk. Research and Development (R&D) During the year ended October 31, 2022, the company spent $2,237,920 on R&D. History Coda Octopus Group, Inc. was founded in 1994.