Founder
Dr. Patrick D. Beeson, CD
Eighteen years in the Royal Canadian Navy. A doctorate in routing vehicles safely through dangerous spaces. Three prototypes built with his own hands. Fanal™ is where those three meet.
Retired naval officer · vehicle designer · path-planning researcher
Why he can build this
The sea, the mathematics and the workbench.
He knows the sea and the navy
Eighteen years of naval service, including bridge watchkeeping and above-water warfare in four Canadian warships. He speaks the language of the navies and dive teams Fanal is built for.
He has solved this problem before
His PhD thesis built algorithms that route casualty-evacuation helicopters around anti-aircraft threats. Finding a safe path through a dangerous space is exactly what Fanal has to do.
He builds what he designs
He designed and built all three CASS test vehicles himself: the CAD, the circuit boards, the embedded software and the mapping code. Each one reused the last one’s parts.
His story
Patrick grew up in and around London, Ontario, where engineering summer camps at the University of Western Ontario sparked a lifelong interest in science and engineering. As a child he was given a drafting table, on which he drew the aircraft, ships and submersibles he wanted to build when he grew up. Fanal is being designed on that same table. Flying lessons in high school gave him hands-on experience with vehicle control and navigation.
He graduated in mechanical engineering from the Royal Military College of Canada and served 18 years in the Canadian Armed Forces: first in the Royal Canadian Navy as a bridge watchkeeping and above-water warfare officer in His Majesty’s Canadian Ships WINNIPEG, OTTAWA, MONTREAL and VILLE DE QUÉBEC, then, after earning a pharmacy degree, as pharmacy team leader at Canadian Forces Base Kingston, running medical logistics. He earned an MBA along the way, graduating at the top of his class.
He completed a PhD in operations research, the mathematics of making the best decision under constraints, at McMaster University. He wanted to build autonomous underwater vehicles, but found no openings in industry, so he founded Chaleur Autonomous Submersible Systems to do the work himself.
He leads Fanal’s vehicle configuration and onboard software development, and he is an open-water scuba diver. Over his career the common thread has been getting people out of harm’s way. Fanal brings that work underwater.
Education, competencies and awards
Education
- PhD, operations research, McMaster University
- MBA, Royal Military College of Canada
- BSc, pharmacy, University of Toronto
- BEng, mechanical engineering, Royal Military College of Canada
Relevant competencies
- Marine navigation; radar, sonar and navigation sensor theory
- Tracking, guidance and control algorithms
- Marine systems engineering and naval architecture
- C++, Python, embedded systems, PCB design, FreeCAD and KiCAD
Awards
- Canadian Forces Decoration (CD), 12 years of meritorious service
- Medal of academic excellence, top MBA graduate, Royal Military College of Canada (2016)
- Harry Lyman Hooker Senior Fellowship, McMaster University (2016)
- John F. Kilner Trophy, top candidate, MARS III course (2002)
How we work
Lean, local and practical.
- Based in New Brunswick’s Chaleur region, hiring local talent wherever we can.
- Engineering by contract where a specialist does it better: structural design of the pressure hull, electronics and front-end software.
- Frugal R&D: each prototype reuses the last one’s hardware.
- Part of the University of New Brunswick J. Herbert Smith Centre accelerator.
Interested in collaborating?
We are looking for engineering collaborators, and for advisers with professional wreck, cave or industrial penetration-diving experience.
How we use AI
A partnership, with people in charge.
CASS works with AI every day. Our concept film, this website and much of our planning were built with Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic. We hold ourselves to four principles.
We do our own thinking
AI sharpens our thinking. It does not replace it.
We work with it, not through it
We wrestle with hard problems alongside AI. We never drop a prompt and walk away. The difference shows in the work.
People make the decisions
A person makes every engineering and business decision, and answers for it.
Together we achieve more
Capable people working with capable machines achieve what neither could alone. It is the same idea behind a diver and Fanal.
In the community
Rooted in the Chaleur region.
We support young people and makers close to home.
- 275 Chaleur Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corps: Patrick spoke to the cadets about underwater robots and ocean science in October 2026.