Mesuris SA

Mesuris SA was founded in France in July 1993 with its main initial purpose being the distributor of survey equipment within France. The company headquarters are in St Grégoire France, north of Rennes in Brittany and it presently has twelve employees; owner and general manager is Alain Mouquet. A technical facility dedicated to multi-beam bathymetry opened in 2002 in La Trinité sur Mer.

The first three suppliers of survey equipment to Mesuris in its early days were Ultra Electronics UK (sonar greyscale printers), Reson DK (hydrophones and multibeam echo sounders) and TSS UK (motion sensors and cable detectors). Nowadays the company acts as distributor of survey equipment for various manufacturers in the USA, Canada, UK, Denmark, Holland and Germany. Its latest distribution agreements have been signed with QPS for QINSy survey software and General Acoustics for sub-bottom profilers and other acoustic sensors.
In 2000 a new company named SMF Europe was established as a subsidiary of Mesuris. This company itself carries out surveying activities. Under the same managing director as Mesuris, SMF Europe is actually constituted only for financial and management purposes as it hires both its personnel and equipment from the mother company. Comex also participates in this subsidiary, the surveying activities of which specialise in multi-beam high-resolution bathymetry and sonar imagery. Fifty per cent of Mesuris employees are now involved in SMF Europe activities including multi-beam survey, sales and production.
The operational team tasked with survey operations consists of six persons: three multi-beam operators (two of whom are hydrographic technicians and one a marine geo-sciences specialist), one electronic engineer, one professional helmsman and an individual responsible for commercial/ operation management. Survey operations are carried out using an aluminium professional survey launch, Survex , developed in collaboration with Comex (see www.smf-europe.fr/ for more information on these survey crafts). Up until now we have in fact built three such vessels in co-operation with a French shipyard, all three fully equipped for multi-beam bathymetry surveys and scientific hydrography.
Over the past four years clients for our survey activities have been various public customers such as harbour authorities and chambers of commerce, dredging companies and land topographers. These survey activities contribute more than 25% to the company’s turnover of close to 3 million euros per year.

Corporate Philosophy
The corporate philosophy of Mesuris is to market products and systems used by the company itself in survey activities carried out by SMF Europe to provide customers with superior technical support. Mesuris also works together with survey equipment manufacturers to improve existing products and to provide surveyors with more powerful systems and software; new equipment is tested on the survey launch Survex 1, operated by SMF Europe.
With this subsidiary company and vessel we are focusing on survey solutions ready for on-site operation without mobilisation or calibration. We focus on high-performance systems: direct digitalisation multi-beam echo sounders with wide swath and attitude/heading navigation unit, combined with RTK positioning. The inertial navigator included in the POS MV 320 Applanix position and orientation system provides continuous position and accurate heading in the frequent instances of GPS satellite occlusion by bridges or trees beside rivers or canals. For post-processing of collected data, QINSy software is used, which includes removal of soundings unrelated to the seabed, DTM, conventional bathymetric maps, 3D views and volume computations. Cross profiles are produced in numbers as required from the DTM, perfectly positioned and quick. This in sharp contrast to conventional single-beam bathymetry, a time-consuming and costly procedure, particularly on small rivers and canals if many cross profiles are required due to the necessity of navigating exactly along each profile.

View of the Future
We will continue to promote the sales of fully equipped Survex multi-beam launches, progressing from one to several units per year. We are also working on increasing the length of the Survex survey craft from 6,80 to 8,60m and up to 9,50m long so as to have the space to install a sub-bottom profiler in addition to the multi-beam echo sounder. Shallow-water coastal area surveying really needs small-draft, powerful vessels like Survex , which provides the best possible solution due to its stability and high productivity; it is capable of surveying at up to 15 knots. It is a road-transportable unit weighing less than 3 tons, and yet can be operational within one hour of arrival on site, launched directly from a trailer using an onboard hydraulic crane. This flexibility makes possible the use of Survex for short surveys at multiple locations with a minimal crew of just two.
There are currently two Survex launches operating in France, and another one in the UK for the same type of job in harbours, rivers, canals etc.
The experience of our own survey team contributes greatly to year by year improvements in the design of Survex and benefits to new users. These find themselves enjoying in a small vessel all the technology, performance and good working conditions usually found in bigger units impossible to transport easily by road. With the experience of five solid years survey activity, Mesuris is now the French specialist in shallow-water, high-quality multi-beam bathymetry.