Workshop on Underwater Positioning
The Hydrographic Society organised a workshop on underwater positioning and navigation on Wednesday 10th December 2008. On board of the tug René Siegfried, three presentations were held, touching various aspects of the matter.
Hans-Willem de Leeuw (sales engineer, IXSEA Benelux) explained the principle of the fibre optic gyroscope and introduced various applications of this technique in the IXSEA product range. Especially in the offshore, there is a demand for precise underwater navigation and the combination of the fibre-optic gyroscopes with GPS or DVL make the positioning more accurate, even after hours.
Neil MacDonald (technical manager, Applied Acoustics) went into USBL and use of Easytrak in real life. It is very useful to track ROVs, AUVs in different environments and dephts, facilitating to work also in water where the visibility is reduced.
A dual presentation was made by Ronald Keesmaat (sales manager) and Ian Florence (subsea construction group manager) of Kongsberg. Ronald started off explaining the technical side of the HiPAP system. Through the spherical transducer, a wide angle can be covered as well as noise (for example of the vessel) can be of less influence. Ian then gave examples of use of the systems in several projects all over the world.
A special Hydrographic Society Benelux Delft Blue beer mug was developed for all speakers and the chairman of the evening, Maarten-Jan Thijs, was happy to hand this as a welcomed thank you gift.
The next workshop will be on 18 February 2009, themed water management. On this occasion, also the Annual General Meeting will take place. More information on the Hydrographic Society Benelux website, where also the presentations of this evening will be published.
