Page 11: of Marine Technology Magazine (May 2022)

with extremely low water clarity and even have to have a ground station.” Hawk to be simple and easy to use,” said visibility. It can point out debris and ob- Capone said most towed sidescan so- Capone. “You can buy professional- jects that could entangle a diver, making nars are quite expensive, and they take grade software at 20 to 30 times the cost the dive safer. quite a bit of skill to operate properly. that will require weeks to become pro- “Water clarity does not impair the im- “Like Sonar EMILY, we designed SAR ? cient.” agery with Sonar EMILY,” said Capone. “It’s unaffected by turbidity. It provides clear imagery no matter how turbid the water.”

The Michigan and Montana Depart- ments of Transportation have procured

Sonar EMILY to perform scheduled monitoring of underwater bridge foun- dations, as well as more urgent inspec- tions following high-water events, such as heavy rain, snowmelt, or a dam breach.

In May 2020, Michigan’s heavy rain and ? ooding destroyed two dams and left a path of destruction. All down- stream bridges were closed until they could be inspected. However, conduct- ing those emergency inspections are usually when they are also more dif? - cult and dangerous. While each bridge might take up to a day to survey under a traditional inspection requiring equip- ment to be transported and assembled on site, the Michigan DOT team was able to inspect around one bridge an hour using EMILY.

Casey Collings conducts underwater inspections for Great Lakes Engineer- ing, and appreciates knowing what he’ll ? nd below before diving, especially in bad visibility. “Sometimes we can’t see out of our mask, let alone see six inches ahead of us. With this system, we can deploy it easily and safely, and we’ll know if we’re going to encounter a tree trunk coming up, or a shopping cart, or, like last week, a toilet. It kind of gives us peace of mind.”

Sahuarita, Ariz.-based Hydronalix

CEO Tony Mulligan said the company is looking at installing the new Hum- minbird APEX sonars on Sonar EMILY. “One advantages of the APEX system is we can connect it through a small porta- ble radio with your smart tablet, or your phone or even your Smart TV. You don’t www.marinetechnologynews.com 11

MTR #4 (1-17).indd 11 4/28/2022 2:39:16 PM