Hydrographic ships of Caspian Flotilla (CF) received two up-to-date multi-beam echo sounders under the federal target-oriented program “Global Navigation System” and State Defense Order 2012.
Main purpose of that equipment is bottom examination at seaports, searching of underwater objects, sounding depth from 20 to 11,000 meters, and securing navigation of CF ships and civil vessels.
Key advantage of multi-beam echo sounders is that 288 depths (same as number of beams) can be sounded during a 1-second measurement session. Bottom area of 50-200 square meters is shown on display on a real-time basis with measuring uncertainty of 0.5%. Standard one-beam sounder measures only 6-8 depths within same time.
Except for the new echo sounders, the GLONASS positioning station has finished beta testing and was put in service.
GLONASS system allows positioning of surface ships with high accuracy (up to 10 meters) and reliability.
[mappress] Source: Russian Navy , November 22, 2012