Sonardyne International Ltd. has unveiled several new additions to its 2020 product line-up. The underwater technology provider says that the products are all designed to play a role in delivering users’ data from the seabed to the shore. 

The first item that Sonardyne has unveiled is its SPRINT-Nav Mini, which the company describes as the “most compact guidance and control solution in the market.”

In a single instrument that weighs less than one kilogram in water for the 300 meter-rated version, SPRINT-Nav Mini provides guidance and control outputs including orientation, velocity, altitude and depth. SPRINT-Nav Mini provides precise, robust and fixed frequency outputs, independent of each individual sensor’s update rates by tightly fusing the information from each of its sensors. SPRINT-Nav Mini provides customers with several advantages, including reduced cost, less cabling and additional vehicle payload capacity, thanks to replacing the need for three separate instruments—AHRS, DVL and pressure sensors. 

SPRINT-Nav Mini comes in a highly compact 215 millimeter-high and 149 millimeter-diameter housing. It is also available in a 4,000 meter-rated titanium unit of the same size, which makes it ideal for smaller remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).

Sonardyne has also introduced its second-generation Gyro USBL, which combines the vessel heading, pitch and roll data that’s critical to Ultra-Short BaseLine (USBL) system performance, with an acoustic transceiver – all in one housing. Using the experience it has gained from designing complex and compact sensor assemblies, the new Gyro USBL is now 30 percent shorter and 40 percent lighter, which means more vessels such as small vessels of opportunity and USVs can get the best performance from their USBL using an even easier to handle and install instrument.

Gyro USBL is available in two performance levels, both of which will be delivered pre-calibrated, in-water, allowing users to get right to work. One is a cost-effective version for standard USBL operations, and the other is “plus” for long layback tracking and touch-down monitoring.

“Our customers across the energy, defence and civil markets want to do ever more in the ocean space, increasingly through remote operations,” says Graham Brown, Sonardyne International’s managing director.

“We’ve been supporting them every step of the way, from seabed to shore, with smaller and more capable systems. Our latest products and capabilities – which we had intended to demonstrate this week in London at Oceanology – will further support their goals across an even wider range of assets, from smaller ROVs to small manned and unmanned vessels of opportunity.”

Sonardyne notes that it has also increased the functionality of its Syrinx 600 kHz Doppler velocity log (DVL). Specifically, Syrinx now has optional acoustic current Doppler profiling (ADCP) capability, as well as dual DVL/ADCP operations, without compromising bottom track. The new Echo Observer software can view and analyze the ADCP data.

According to Sonardyne, when using SPRINT-Nav, which comes with a tightly coupled Syrinx DVL built-in, the addition of ADCP functionality “really comes into its own.” The company adds that users can get “absolute profile velocities in the most challenging conditions while maintaining SPRINT-Nav’s class-leading navigation performance.”

When bottom track is not available, Syrinx uses inertial velocities from SPRINT to compensate the ADCP water column velocities for vehicle motion, so users get “absolute water velocities through the local water column, even when they have no DVL bottom track,” the company explains.