Pinpointing Precision: Arctia chooses Sonardyne system for subsea surveys

When Finnish state-owned hydrographic services and icebreaking company Arctia need to accurately and reliably position their subsea survey equipment there is only one logical solution.

Arctia provide a wide range of services for Finland’s maritime industry including icebreaking, hydraulic engineering, planning and permit services, fairway maintenance and survey services, hydrographic services and research.

Their services all rely on precise subsea navigation and tracking, especially those using towed survey equipment. This is where Sonardyne come in, Arctia have chosen their Mini-Ranger 2 Ultra Short BaseLine (USBL) system with WSM 6+ transponders for their marine survey services.

Many of their marine surveys are conducted around offshore wind farms where teams of internationally certified hydrographic surveyors and shallow water experts provide tailor-made survey, analysing and planning solutions to meet even the most demanding of customer needs.

Mini-Ranger 2 is one of Sonardyne’s most popular USBL systems, chosen for its small size, value and dependable performance in all underwater environments. It’s the perfect choice for fitting to small survey vessels, moored barges and uncrewed vessels.

For Arctia, it is the perfect partner for towed hydrographic survey equipment such as magnetometers and sidescan sonars used as part of their survey services. With depth ratings of up to 1000 metres and able to operate in temperatures as low as -5 degrees Celsius, it’s ideal for the Baltic Sea and offers the opportunity to upgrade to other versions for depths up to 4,000 metres should Arctia and their customers operate at greater depths in future.

If you have a similar challenge in your subsea navigation and tracking operations, contact us to see how we can help.

Pick your kit, operate at any depth

Deck Topside is the robust and versatile solution for commanding and controlling your Sonardyne acoustic release or initiation transponders, empowering you to navigate your operations with confidence and efficiency. The ability to support both types of transponder ensures you have the flexibility to meet your specific needs, whether it’s releasing underwater equipment or initiating mine neutralisation operations.

Deck Topside is supplied with cabled Nano dunker transceivers to enable command and control at any water depth and over any range. They simply plug into the transceiver port on the side of Deck Topside and are suspended over the side of your vessel. Ten metres of cable are supplied as standard with a 20-metre extension cable also available.

Depending on which RT6 you have, there are different deck kits available, from shallow to deep. The shallow water deck kit is a workhorse for your operations requiring ranges of less than 1, 000 m, so perfect with RT 6-1000. For operations deeper than this, our mid water and deep water deck kits are perfect. Use the mid water kit with RT 6-3000.The deep water deck kit utilises our long range, LMF-frequency band for use with RT 6 HD.

Tough and simple to use all day long

Deck Topside is completely portable and perfectly at home working in harsh marine environments.

It features a high brightness, full colour 7-inch resistive touch screen display and an easy-to-use user interface (UI) which allow a host of parameters to be set, including environmental. The unit is IP67 rated when closed and IP66 when open and being operated.

Power up and choose which mode you want Deck Topside to work in; RT 6 or IT 6. The UIs are easy to use and require no special knowledge of underwater acoustics. As touch screens are not suitable for every weather or stage of a marine operation, physical buttons are used for critical tasks such as arming, initiating and releasing.

Power comes from an 12/24 V dc external input, and for those situations when you’re operating from a vessel with no external power, a Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery provides up to 8 hours of continuous use.

After a successful operation, you can download system logfiles and operational reports. Deck Topside can export a complete set of activity logs for all activities, and a PDF report for releases.

Futureproof your investment with expandable capabilities

Deck Topside has been engineered to allow the addition of future features and developments via in-field software upgrades, protecting your investment in Sonardyne underwater technology.

At a glance

• Provides full configuration, testing and control of all RT 6s and IT 6
• Use it in the workshop, back-deck or from a small boat
• Engineered using industry standard ruggedised case; IP67 rated
• Rechargeable battery provides 8 hours of use; supports external power input
• 7-inch full colour touchscreen display; daylight readable
• Physical buttons for safety critical operational sequences
• Supplied with 10 m cabled Nano dunker
• Portable, rugged, secure

Overview

Its high power output and Wideband 3 signal processing offers improved operating range and acoustic performance in challenging conditions such as when deployed from noisy vessels or in multi-path environments.

The internal Lithium-ion rechargeable battery pack minimises the supply current for long dunker cables. It also enables relocation of the dunker if the cable is cut.

The robust AGP connector on the Dunker 6+ is identical to the ROVNav 6+ and HPT USBL for compatibility and to reduce spares.

At a glance

• Perfect for commanding LBL transponders
• Use it to recover data from Fetch and AMTs
• Capability to operate as topside for RT 6 acoustic releases
• Deploy it over-the-side of your vessel
• Rugged mechanics and connectors
• Shock mounted internal electronics

Dunker 6+ LBL and telemetry transceiver is fully compatible with our modem and sensor logging instruments such as AMT and Fetch , allowing it to be used to retrieve data or configure logging regimes. It can also be used to release the RT 6 range of acoustic releases.

The Dunker 6+ system consists of 100 m of cable on a stainless steel cable drum with brake and locking mechanism. The 10 m deck cable between the 48 V Surface Interface Unit (SIU) and the cable drum allows the drum to be conveniently located. The connection to the cable drum is via an easily replaceable 8-way SubConn.

Optionally, an RT 6 topside kit with 30 m of cable is available in a carrying case without a cable drum.