Page 75: of Marine Technology Magazine (September 2014)

seabed meant the vehicle had to have a minimum weight to guarantee safe, ac- curate working and effi cient trenching operations, for example. Varied seabed soil conditions were also considered in the Hi-Traq’s design. The Hi-Traq’s four-track undercarriage design enables it to climb slopes with gradients of up to 20 degrees. www.ihcmerwede.com

Kongsberg Upgrades

Digital Stills Camera

Kongsberg Maritime added an Ether- net control interface and a new graphi- cal user interface to its high resolution digital stills camera the OE14-408. The

OE14-408 with its 1/1.7-in. CCD sensor, 5x optical zoom and achromatic dou- blet lens has the ability to capture stills images up to a 10 megapixel resolution while correcting for chromatic aberra- tion, Kongsberg said. With the addition of an Ethernet interface the operator has the ability to control all camera func- tions remotely. Captured images, in ei- ther RAW or JPEG format, can be stored to the camera’s 16GB internal memory or downloaded as soon as they are taken through the 10/100 Base-T connection.

The camera supports both static and

DHCP address protocols.

Images can also be transferred by USB or over an ad-hoc wireless network. www.km.kongsberg.com nke Instrumentation designs, manufactures and sells instruments and systems for water measurements and environmental monitoring. Our fi elds of application are ocean, deep sea, coastal... Our range of products includes: data loggers, autonomous buoys, deep fl oats, sedi- ment sensors, profi lers. nke Instrumentation is involved in several research projects, and works in partnership with scientifi c institutions such as Ifremer and CNRS. The French company has launched its Brazil- ian subsidiary in July 2013: nke Instrumentaçao, located in Rio de janeiro.

Contact www.nke-instrumentation.com

[email protected] 00 33 2 97 36 41 31

ZI Kerandre – Rue Gutenberg 56700 Hennebont - FRANCE nke instrumentation EL MTR Sept14.indd 1 6/16/2014 11:49:14 AM

Thien Nam Buys Sonardyne’s Ranger 2

Vietnamese survey company Thien

Nam Positioning JSC has recently in- vested in its fi rst Ranger 2 USBL acous- tic positioning system from Sonardyne

International Ltd., purchased through the company’s regional offi ce in Sin- gapore. Ranger 2 will be used to track a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) during the installation of a pipe fl ow- line and a gas export pipeline protection mattress in an oilfi eld offshore Vietnam.

Ranger 2 is designed as a high perfor- mance acoustic position reference sys- tem designed for tracking underwater targets and positioning dynamically positioned (DP) vessels. The system uses the Ultra-Short BaseLine (USBL) method to calculate the position of a subsea target, in this case Thien Nam’s ROV, by measuring the range and bearing from a vessel-mounted transceiver to an acoustic transponder mounted on the target. Multiple subsea targets over a wide area and range of water depths can be simultaneously and precisely positioned.

Subsea structure installation requires accurate and precise positioning. Sonar- dyne Wideband 2 at the core of 6G technology uses ultra-wide bandwidth signals for more precise ranging, providing the necessary accuracy and precision for these projects. For this operation, transponders will be mounted on the mattress so that Ranger 2 can track it as it descends, ensuring that it is laid within permit- ted ranges for protecting the pipeline. www.sonardyne.com

Image: IHC Mer w ede

Image: K ongsberg www.marinetechnologynews.com

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