iRobot Buys Nekton Research, Moves Maritime Division to Raleigh-Durham, NC

 

In what is pretty stunning news to me, iRobot has purchased Nekton Research for $10 million USD. The reason this is so stunning, is because Nekton is 30min down the road from me, and I've interviewed there! Nekton is a small business located in Durham North Carolina and specializes in underwater robots. You can see one of their robots, the Transphibian, operating after the jump. Up till this point Nekton has based it's business on government research contracts and hasn't done any large scale product sales - this looks to change. iRobot says they plan on moving their "Maritime Programs office" to the Raleigh-Durham area. Eventually iRobot plans to have all their underwater research and development happen at this location. This will be where the Seaglider program eventually moves to.

iRobot has updated their website to reflect the new acquisition and features the Seaglider, Ranger, Transphibian, and "High Speed UUV". I'm looking forward to see what exciting things will pop out of the water, so to speak.

Below is a video showing how iRobot's robot "Seaglider" operates.