Page 20: of Marine Technology Magazine (January 2021)

AUTONOMOUS NAVIGATION

Sonardyne’s SPRINT-Nav was used on a SEA-KIT X class for

DASA demonstration project.

Sonardyne with or without GNSS

The era of autonomy is fast approaching, on and offshore, as are the suite of sensors available to support autonomous operations, including navigation in GNSS denied environments.

By Malik Chibah, Engineering Director, Sonardyne se of uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) as risks. This could be where line of sight to a GNSS constel- operational tools in their own right is gaining lation is lost while transiting under bridges or through busy increasing traction. From harbor patrol to off- harbours, or near signi? cant structures, such as wind turbines, shore wind operations, USVs and autonomous offshore platforms or port infrastructure. Some of these ar-

U shipping are seen as an opportunity to reduce eas are where you most don’t want to lose signal. Another cost, risk to humans and our carbon footprints. risk that’s less likely, but is still there, is jamming or spoo? ng

But they don’t come without challenges. Because they’re where someone deliberately decides to disrupt GNSS signals. unmanned and require control remotely, we are even more These aren’t new issues, not terrestrially at least. Self-driving reliant on having accurate navigation systems onboard and or autonomous vehicles on our roads have been developing currently that largely rests on Global Navigation Satellite Sys- a mix of capabilities to ensure safe and accurate navigation tems (GNSS). for some time. They’re using sensor suites which fuse a mix

As a primary navigation source, GNSS is well used, but there of camera, radar, onboard sensors and inertial navigation sys- are conditions where purely relying on it could create some tem (INS) technologies in order make sure that these vehicles 20 January/February 2021

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