Page 44: of Marine Technology Magazine (July 2011)

44MTRJuly/August2011 THE MARINE TECHNOLOGY REPORTER 100Marport Deep Sea Technologies Inc. focuses on developing and market- ing Software Defined Sonar technolo- gy and products. Its target markets are Commercial Fisheries, Underwater Defense, Offshore Energy and Ocean Science. Marport recently entered into a partnership with General Dynamics Canada, a pioneer in the development of mili- tary acoustics processing and display solutions, setting the stage for thejoint development and marketing of next generation underwater acoustic products to support underwater mili- tary ISR missions. GDC has also awarded Marport a multi-year R&D contract for new naval sonar prod- ucts. Marports partners include General Dynamics Canada, Canon France, Simon Fraser University, MIT, National Research Council of Canadas Institute for Ocean Technology, Questar Tangent, Rolls- Royce, NOAA and SINTEF. Marport has also recently spun off its underwater robotics division, Marine Robotics Inc. (MRI). MRI manufactures and develops Unmanned Maritime Vehicle (UMV) systems, technology and products designed for military, commercial, and scientific research applications. Technology Profile: Marport created AquaPix, an interferometric Synthetic Aperture Sonar targeted to mine countermeasures, hydrography, seabed survey. The sonar is frequency agile from 200 ? 400 kHz and offers range independent resolution of 2.5cm by 2.5cm with co-registered 3D bathymetry. Effective swath widths are up to 12 times water depth in shallow water, to a maximum width of 600m - more than double currently available high resolution bathymetric sonars. This increased quality greatly facilitates detection of small objects, i.e. mines and under-water IEDs, and changes in seabedtexture such as that caused by oil spills. AquaPix is the latest product based on Marports Software Defined Sonar (SDS), an underwater acoustics technology platform designed toenable advanced underwater sensing, communications and imaging. The majority of Marport products ? ranging from single channel acoustic sensors to military sonars ? are sup- ported from a common electronics platform. The software-centric architecture enables digital signal processing to be executed in multiple FPGA cores allowing dynamic reconfiguration and massively parallel processing per- formance.Marport Makes its MarkMarport50 Harbour Drive, St. Johns, NL, A1C 6J4. Tel: (709) 757-5757 Website: www.marport.com CEO & President: Karl Kenny Executive Vice-President, Sales: Oskar Axelsson Vice-President, Software Engineering: Anthony Paul Testing Capabilities Marport C-Tech, located in Cornwall Ontario, is equipped to handle a great deal of testing. Testing facilities include hydrostatic pressure testing, vibration, temperature and onsite acoustic test tanks. Comprehensive acoustic testing is conducted at a company owned Underwater Acoustic Test Facility located in an off-site area remote from envi- ronmental noise and providing acoustically quiet and sta- ble water. The site measures 140 metres long, 100 metres wide and 13.5 metres deep. On site there is a fully instrumented floating, moored barge. This facility allows us to measure, record and cali- brate sensitivity characteristics of projector and hydrophone arrays at frequencies from 50 Hz to 200 kHz. Under computer control, measurements are plotted, data is computed and results are drawn in diagram form. The barge can accommodate transducer array sizes rang- ing up to 5000 kg in weight. Although the water freezes during winter, the test site remains fully operational by keeping the barge pool and other instrumented areas free of ice. Acoustic Tests ?Beam Patterns (horizontal and vertical) ?Polar and rectilinear directivity patterns ?Source level test (transmit) ?Receive Sensitivity ?Hydrophone calibration ?Deep submergence acoustic testing, .05-10 kHz at 0-500 psig Underwater Acoustic Test Tank, UWTT The UWTT is a cylindrical redwood tank 6.4m in diameter and 3.6m deep and is used for near-field acoustic trans- ducer measurements ranging from 3 kHz - 200 kHz. Typical acoustic tests performed using the UWTT are: ?X-Y Admittance Plots ?X-Y Impedance Plots ?Resonance ?Source Level Hydrostatic Pressure Testing A pressure vessel provides automated programmable pressure cycle sequencing to a maximum pressure of 1210 psig. The vessel chamber measures 24 inches in diameter and 84 inches high. In addition to these facilities, Marport has signed Memorandum of Understanding agreements with several organizations that allow full access to their facilities. These organizations and their testing facilities include: Number of Employees: approximately 105 Annual Sales (US$): $18 Million (expected)Karl Kenny, Marport hard-charging CEO & President , has the St. Johns company in rapid but rational expansion mode.