Page 50: of Marine Technology Magazine (November 2006)

Acergy Viking, and will operate pri- marily in the Norwegian sector of the

North Sea.

While all three ROV systems for

Acergy will encompass the core UHD technologies, they will also benefit from Acergy's experience with com- ponent layout, frame design, and use of tooling packages. The final design will be tailored to Acergy's specific and exacting remote intervention and survey requirements.

Sonar, Cameras for New

Fugro ROV System

Fugro has contracted Kongsberg

Maritime to supply an extensive suite of cameras and scanning sonars for eight new Work Class ROV Systems, being produced by Fugro at its facili- ty in Singapore. The package includes six new HDTV Color Zoom cameras for survey and intervention tasks as well as two additional suites of equip- ment for other parts of the Fugro

ROV Fleet. Fugro plans to invest $38.4m before the end of 2007 to replace and update its existing ROV fleet. The new ROVs are designated

FCV 1000 and FCV 3000. The underwater HDTV Color Zoom camera is designed to be used for all high-quality ROV inspection, inter- vention and survey tasks, as required by Fugros customers. The various video output options allow compati- bility with existing ROV composite video transmission systems and HDV,

DV or Firewire systems plus simple conversion to other alternative digital formats including HD-SDI.

In addition to HDTV video the camera has a 2.7 mega pixel digital still photographic capability. A water compensated optical zoom lens pro- vides a close-up inspection capability combined with the flexibility of a 10x magnification for powerful stand off inspections.

CapRock Wins Tiburon

Divers Contract

Tiburon Divers, a commercial div- ing company servicing the inland and offshore sectors, turned to CapRock

Communications for satellite com- munications solutions, giving the company a critical lifeline between its offshore vessels and headquarters and a real-time communications for all onboard personnel.

Although initially awarded a con- tract for a single vessel, Tiburon quickly realized the benefits of broad- band communications. Hence, the contract was signed with CapRock to outfit the entire fleet with a similar communications package. Under the terms of the agreement, CapRock will provide Tiburon's fleet of dive vessels with Voice over IP, Internet access and wireless access points supported by 24/7 customer service and network monitoring. Tiburon also uses

CapRock's solutions to further enhance the services it provides to its customers while at sea. Always-on communications enable onboard cus- tomers to send and receive real-time information to and from experts onshore, resulting in quicker and more educated decision-making capa- bilities.

Marlink Teams for Arctic

Ice Monitoring Buoy

Iridium Satellite, in conjunction with its service provider Marlink, is providing two-way data communica- tions with a remote unmanned buoy measuring ice thickness in the Arctic

Ocean as part of a program aimed at detecting climate change at high lati- tudes.

The Sea Ice Thickness Observation

System (SITHOS) was developed by

Christian Michelson Research (CMR), a Norwegian scientific research organization. It was deployed in late 2005 at 84 degrees north and 60 degrees west. The buoy contains sophisticated two-axis tilt sensors that measure the resonant frequency of deep-water waves under the ice.

These waves are typically 300 m long and only one mm deep. The raw tilt- meter data is transmitted at intervals through the Iridium satellite network.

The buoy acquires and transmits up to five hours of data for each meas- urement. By analyzing the movement of the deep-water waves, scientists can make accurate estimates of the thick- ness of the ice at the surface. The

SITHOS buoy, encased in a hardened ruggedized capsule, was designed to be deployed by parachute, permitting it to be placed in locations that can- not easily be reached over the ice. people & companies 50 MTR November 2006

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