Cellula Robotics Selected for Canadian Technology Accelerators UK Maritime Defence and Security Program

Press Release + Noah Note

Cellula Robotics has been selected to participate in the Maritime Defence and Security Applications of Ocean Technologies program in the United Kingdom through the Canadian Technology Accelerators (CTA) initiative.

The program supports Canadian companies developing advanced maritime defence and ocean technology solutions aligned with shared Canada–UK maritime security priorities.

As maritime security challenges evolve, structured engagement between allied governments, defence organizations, and industry partners becomes increasingly important. The CTA program provides a framework for direct dialogue between Canadian ocean technology innovators and UK defence stakeholders, supporting long-term collaboration in maritime defence technology and subsea capability development.

Cellula will join a cohort of Canadian ocean technology companies in London in March to engage with UK maritime security stakeholders and explore opportunities for collaboration in defence and security applications.

Cellula Robotics designs and builds long-range autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) for persistent and long-endurance missions. Its subsea systems support under-ice ISR, seabed monitoring, mine warfare, and critical infrastructure inspection. The company’s focus on endurance, integration, and operational reliability reflects the requirements of modern maritime defence environments.

Participation in the CTA program builds on Cellula’s growing engagement within the UK maritime defence ecosystem and reinforces its commitment to trusted partnerships across allied nations.

---

Noah Note: Cellula has been realatively quiet over the last few months. That isn't absolutely shocking but it is nice to hear from them. Lots of people slow down into the new year, but few have this year.

For those new here who need the reminder, Cellula is an Autonomous Systems manufacturer founded in 2001 by Eric Jackson, a longtime member of ISE who served as the company’s Manager of Robotics & Controls for over two decades, the company has often been touted as one of the likely candidates to provide Canada's future UUV fleet through the ongoing Uncrewed Underwater Surveillance System project (formerly the Underwater Environmental Awareness project)

At the forefront of their efforts is the Guardian AUV, formerly the Solus-XR. This XLUUV is engineered for extended missions and Arctic surveillance. With a length of 11.7 meters and a cross-section of about 1.66 meters, the platform supports either battery or hydrogen fuel-cell variants.

The fuel-cell version weighs approximately 8,000 kilograms, is rated for depths of 300, 1,000, or 3,000 meters, and delivers up to 38.5 days (925 hours) of endurance with a maximum range of 5,000 kilometers.

Payload and deployment flexibility play a key role in this. The Guardian offers modular payload bays (each about 1.2 × 1.2 × 1.7 meters) giving a total internal capacity of up to 5,000 litres for sensors, deployable effectors, or off-platform systems. It is designed to fit into a standard 40-foot ISO container for rapid ship or shore deployment, such as, say, on future icebreakers, destroyers, or corvettes.

It features station-keeping and hovering functionality, a retractable mast for communications, and redundant propulsion with a cruise speed of around 8 knots.

Complementing the Guardian, Cellula developed smaller and more specialized subsea systems, the Subsea Warden and Subsea Sentinel. Both are designed to provide extended underwater surveillance and data-gathering capabilities.

The Subsea Warden is a compact hovering AUV used primarily for vessel signature measurement and acoustic characterization, weighing around 130 kilograms with a 1.4-meter frame and a 100-meter depth rating. Its endurance of roughly six hours makes it ideal for localized survey and monitoring missions where agility and stability are critical.

The Subsea Sentinel, by contrast, is a fully autonomous seabed sensor node capable of long-term deployment without cables or surface support, designed to form distributed sensor networks across wide maritime zones.

Both systems can operate independently or in tandem with platforms like Guardian, effectively turning them into both a mothership and a mobile logistics platform for persistent underwater networks.

Guardian, Subsea Warden, and Subsea Sentinel

Subsea Sentinel is especially interesting when looking at the Canadian Arctic Suite of Sensors initative, more spexificslly the former Rapidly Deployable Fixed Array Sensor project that now falls under it. This was originally envisioned as a shore-based, containerized array system that could be rapidly deployed at fixed chokepoints for providing persistent undersea monitoring.

The project though has now developed into autonomous 'Barrier Sensor Arrays' able to be deployed at various pathways across the Archipelago. These will operate independent of any shore-based or fixed infrastructure, likely deployed from the future UUV.

Cellula, pairing Guardian with Subsea Sentinel, has already been trialing this concept with their Vigilus node system. The company was awarded a new contract last year by Defence Research and Development Canada to further trial and refine this concept.

They've also taken the Guardian international thanks to an ongoing Strategic Partnership with BAE Systems. Through this partnership, BAE has integrated their Nautomate mission control software into the Guardian platform. This platform, known as Herne, had previously bid on the Royal Navy's CETUS XLUUV but lost to the UK-based MSubs.

Canada is doing a lot in the Autonomous domain, especially the navy. They might not be as grand or proactive as the Royal Navy but they do try significantly. Canadian companies like Cellula are at the forefrotn of these developments providing Canadian designed, Canadian made solutions in innovative formats.

It's the kind of platform that the Defence Industrial Strategy claims to want to champion, and I'm hopeful we will eventually see movement on them soon. Either way, congrats to Cellula!