In Deep Sea Mining, the real-time monitoring of dynamic operations underwater is a necessity. However, this industry faces many challenges with existing solutions including poor subsea visibility, navigation and obstacle avoidance, asset landing and removal, frequent site survey updates, and infrastructure IMR. Our real-time 3D volumetric sonar, the Echoscope®, is capable of providing a live, 3D volumetric image of the subsea environment even in zero visibility waters.
By generating over 16,000 beams per acoustic transmission and with a frame rate of up to 20 pings per second, the Echoscope range of sonars can “see”, position objects, and map the underwater scene in real-time, providing unique 3D acoustic movie imagery.
Unlike a standard multibeam, the real-time 3D volumetric Echoscope does not need a moving vessel to instantly visualize both moving and static objects underwater. By adding a MOTION GPS positioning sensor, the Echoscope and complementary CodaOctopus® Underwater Survey Explorer (USE) visualization software can create constantly displayed geo-referenced images as data is collected.
The Echoscope and USE software combination have led the charge for supplying accurate, high definition real-time 3D data to the Hydrographic Survey market meeting the IHO S-44 Standard for bathymetric survey data. With over 16,000 beams per pulse, even the smallest of targets can be seen during routine survey work. This performance has led the Echoscope sonar and USE software to be used in tasks ranging from detailed survey mapping to material removal, leak identification, equipment installation and asset placement.
Our solution either be mounted on almost any unmanned surface vehicle to give real-time 3D visualization providing crew or staff with immediate high-quality real-time 3D images of subsea objects, structures or features facilitating safe passage for the vessel. The CodaOctopus® Vantage Visualization Module (VVM) offers unique on-line capabilities to ROV pilots over conventional and older scanning or multibeam packages. With a unique quad-view, the ROV operator has a number of user selectable displays from which to navigate the ROV. Designed with ease of use in mind, VVM software combines the conventional "plan view," commonly provided by scanning sonars, with three additional and separate real-time perspectives of the subsea environment.
The total combination of the Echoscope, USE software, and Vantage Visualization Module, therefore, is a vital tool for safe navigation, obstacle avoidance, and critical asset inspection. It truly prevents downtime caused by zero visibility conditions for ROVs.
Our unique range of real-time 3D solutions of state-of-the-art technology with full 3D time series data is also ideally suited to AUV applications and provides capability for adaptive route planning, full 3D time series data enabling look-ahead volumetric imaging and 3D obstacle avoidance. All these activities can be conducted simultaneously within this single real-time 3D sonar system.
