Page 51: of Marine Technology Magazine (July 2015)

Schmidt Ocean Institute Research Vessel Falkor (Credit: SOI/ Logan Mock Bunting) search from the technological, operational, and informational

Xeos Technologies perspectives. The institute maintains and operates R/V Falkor

With decades of manufacturing experience, Xeos Technolo- as a technologically advanced scienti? c platform suitable to gies have successfully designed market leading wireless te- support multidisciplinary oceanographic research and technol- lemetry products for use in the world’s harshest environments. ogy development. Collaborators get free access to R/V Falkor

Products range from deep sea alarm beacons to surface oil spill with her on-board research facilities and expert technical sup- tracking systems to land based perimeter surveillance systems. port in exchange for a commitment to openly share and com-

Xeos is an Iridium Value Added Reseller and provides con- municate the outcomes of their research.

tract engineering services in addition to its standard product

In March 2015, the Schmidt Ocean Institute worked with the line. All these qualities have brought them success in their four

University of Sydney, MIT, as well as other institutions on the divisions: Communications, Oceanographic Asset Recovery, “Coordinated Robotics” project, which was also featured in Remote Monitoring and Security.

June 2015 issue. The goal was to expand techniques for ef-

The Apollo is an independently powered, self-contained ? ciently coordinating deployments of multiple exploratory mooring beacon with the power of an ultra-bright LED Flasher underwater vehicles by advancing algorithms and their au- combined with satellite communications. Users receive noti? - tonomous capabilities. The success of the project has brought cation of the Apollo’s arrival at the surface from anywhere on engineers even closer to leaving groups of vehicles untended earth via the Iridium Low Earth Orbit satellite communication for long periods for a variety of underwater observation and system. This beacon provides unparalleled visibility, even in data collection missions.

the worst conditions.

The “Perth Canyon: First Deep Exploration” was another

Apollo is fully submersible and has been rated to 11,000 m project based in one of Australia’s proposed national reserves. (36,089 ft) below sea level. In addition, the solid state surface

Despite being just 50 kilometers or so from Western Austra- sensor provides a measure of reliability unavailable in mechan- lia’s capital of Perth, the canyon’s deeper reaches remained ical methods. The new APOLLO unit combines all the best poorly known and largely unexplored until 2015, when scien- features of Iridium communication beacons and LED Flashers, tists from the University of Western Australia onboard Schmidt along with up to 10 years deployment on alkaline batteries.

Ocean Institute’s Research Vessel Falkor explored the region,

With older style VHF beacons, a handheld “direction ? nder” along with a deep-diving remotely operated vehicle. would need to be used to locate equipment, sometimes in very www.marinetechnologynews.com

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