Deep BV, a Dutch survey company specialising in hydrography, marine geophysics and oceanography, has purchased underwater acoustic technology supplied by Sonardyne International, UK, to support its inshore, harbour, coastal and offshore activities.
The two Mini-Ranger 2 Ultra-Short BaseLine (USBL) tracking systems and WSM 6+ mini transponders were delivered to Deep BV’s headquarters in Amsterdam and put straight to work during an operation to search for unexploded ordnance (UXO).
For its first project with Mini-Ranger 2, Deep BV installed one of the systems onboard its 15-metre, twin-hull research vessel, Deep Volans, and configured it to track a WSM 6+ transponder mounted on a remotely operated towed vehicle (ROTV) named Iron Lady.
“We’ve been a user of Sonardyne’s pre-generation Scout USBL system for several years and pleased with the results it’s delivered. However, now was the right time to replace these systems and upgrade to Sonardyne’s 6G product family with all of its attractive features and performance gains,” Klaas Visser , chief technology expert at Deep BV.
Sonardyne sales manager, Alan MacDonald, explained that Mini-Ranger 2 is ideally suited to the type of work carried out by Deep BV. “For example, the transceiver that’s used to track transponders can be mounted alongside the multi-beam system in the moon pool of the Deep Volans. Then afterwards, it’s simple to move it to a different vessel. And thanks to its excellent noise rejection properties, the system’s optimised to provide reliable tracking in shallow water, near the surface where vehicles such as Iron Lady operate.”