Page 38: of Marine Technology Magazine (April 2020)

Tech Files

Innovative products, technologies and concepts

Seamor Marine Debuts New

Kraken: Ultra High Def Upgrade for AquaPix Imaging Sonars

ROV with 3km Capacity

Seamor Marine introduced a new remotely operated vehicle (ROV) with a 3-km capacity, expanding the reach of Seamor’s previous systems by one kilometer. A unit recently arrived in western Panama where one of the country’s hydroelectric generation companies has begun using it for tunnel inspections of two hydroelectric projects on the Old Chiriqui River. Panama’s hydroelectric

Kraken generation company, Electron Investment SA (EISA), purchased Seamor

Kraken’s KATFISH system back onboard af-

Marine’s Chinook ROV to perform 7.1 km of tunnel and penstock inspection ter completing Phase 1 of offshore survey at its Old Chiriqui River hydroelectric project and identify any areas in need work under the OceanVision project.

of repair. The Monte Lirio project opened in 2014 and generates 51.6 MW of clean energy. The Pando project opened in 2019 and generates 33.3 MW. Kraken Robotics reports it has achieved a prac- “One of the main reasons we chose an ROV to inspect the tunnels was that it tical resolution of 2 cm with a Commercial-Off- was much less costly both fnancially and environmentally than the alterna- The-Shelf (COTS) Synthetic Aperture Sonar tive of draining the tunnels for inspection,” said Iván Parra, Civil Engineer (SAS), Kraken’s AquaPix MINSAS.

at EISA. “The operation will now be completed with a very small envi- “For demanding subsea survey missions in ronmental footprint using Seamor technology.” The inspections required a mine countermeasures, infrastructure monitor- deep-water ROV, which is why SEAMOR paired the 3-km fber optics tether ing and oil & gas exploration; data quality is with its Chinook ROV. Able to dive to 600 meters (2,000 feet), the Chinook of the essence,” said Karl Kenny, Kraken’s

ROV is equipped with a sensor skid carrying two Imagenex sonars: the 965A President & CEO. “Kraken’s latest develop- digital multi-beam imaging sonar and the DT360 multi-beam profling sonar. ment, the next generation AquaPix Ultra HD

These sonars are operated processing software, has been designed to ad- simultaneously using an vance the state-of-the-art in seabed mapping for

Ethernet switch to the fber both high-speed towed systems and Unmanned optic tether multiplexer, Underwater Vehicles (UUVs).” allowing the EISA team to Kraken’s Ultra HD software improves the navigate and inspect tunnel AquaPix SAS image resolution from 3.0 x 3.3 walls in almost zero-visibil- cm (across along track) to an industry-leading ity conditions. Auto depth 1.9 x 2.1 cm and maintains constant Ultra HD and auto heading functions resolution across the entire swath. help them safely navigate Kraken measures resolution in real-world con- the tunnel. Once the tunnel ditions using a data-driven technique, developed inspection is complete, by Kraken’s team of sonar scientists. The mea- the EISA team plans to sured resolution of 1.9 x 2.1 cm includes effects use the Chinook ROV for such as aperture shading to reduce sidelobes, other tasks. Seamor’s ROV UUV nonlinear motion, and acoustic propaga- systems have been designed tion in the ocean environment.

with a modular platform In mine warfare, it is well known that the that allows users to swap probability of detecting and classifying a target accessories or upgrade their increases with improving image resolution.

ROV with new features after purchase.

Stinger Technology Inks R&D Deal

Stinger Technology, the next autonomous inspection/ interven- availability of versatile interven- generation subsea marine robot- tion subsea drones. tion tools. This contract helps to ics company, has been awarded The solutions that will be devel- solidify Stinger as a supplier of an R&D contract with Neptune oped for Neptune Energy aims to solutions for autonomous and

Energy, for the development, save costly vessel operations and onshore supported underwater qualifcation and feld trials of reduce risk through continuous drones in the energy sector.

Stinger Technology April 2020 38

MTR