seaView Software V3 provides a cutting-edge user interface for the setup and operation of Impact Subsea sensors.

Transcript

Hi! I’m Ben and in this video we’ll be looking at the ISA500 application in seaView software V3.

When you first run seaView software you’ll be presented with this window here.  On the left hand side. You have a list of applications within seaView software. On the right hand side you have a list of all communication ports and network connections on your pc. When you first run seaView software it will automatically scan all communication ports at every known baud rate. It will then automatically detect any sensors connected to your computer.

In this example two sensors have been detected, one is the ISS360 Sonar and the other is the ISA500 Altimeter, as shown in the center of the screen. If you look at the icon for the ISA500 Altimeter, you’ll find you’re given a little bit more information such as the serial number of the sensor, the firmware version and also how it’s connected to the software. In this particular example we can see it’s connected via COM Port 5 at a baud rate of 115,200. If you double click on the ISA500 icon you’ll be taken into the ISA500 application.

seaView Software Application main screen

Now in the application, the top left hand corner shows the distance reading being reported by the ISA500. Every time the sensor pings you will see a green flash of this light here and a distance reading reported. Below the distance reading you also get an energy and correlation value. Also reported is the temperature of the ISA500 internal electronics and if you have an ISA500 with integrated Heading, Pitch and Roll, you’ll also get Heading, Pitch and Roll readings with a little 3D model of the sensor to show you how it’s orientated at any one time.   

Acoustics settings

In the middle of the screen you’ve got a graph showing distance measurements over time. The left hand side of the screen you have a number of icons. Now if we start with the top icon, this is the ISA500 settings, so if you enter the settings you’ll be presented with a window like this. The first settings window is all to do with the ISA500 Acoustics.  

The ISA500 is a highly configurable altimeter. You can configure many parameters; for example you can change the detection mode you can operate in first detect, strongest or seabed tracking. First detection mode is ideal if you’re working in a confined space where there’s a lot of multi-path, multi-echo capability such as inside a tank. Strongest echo is better for open water activity and if you’re wanting to track the seabed then there’s a seabed tracking option as well.

You can also enable and disable tilt correction, so if you have an ISA500 with integrated AHRS, enabling tilt correction will automatically convert slant ranges into actual altitude so it’ll correct for pitch and roll of your vehicle and give you a more stable altitude reading. You can disable this if you wish and just have pure range readings from the sensor.

You can then configure minimum and maximum ranges, so for your minimum range anything below the set value will never be detected by the ISA500 and your maximum range anything above that value will never be detected by the ISA500 so you can basically gate the ranges that you’re wanting the sensor to look over.  

You can also set the frequency. The ISA500 is a broadband altimeter so you can run it anywhere from 400 to 600kHz. You can set the speed of sound to give you an accurate distance reading, you can set the pulse length and the pulse amplitude. You can also put in any distance offsets as required. Moving on to the next settings window the analogue output.

Analogue output

The ISA500 can provide you a serial ASCII output but it can also provide you a scaled output and it can provide a scaled current or it can provide a scaled voltage and you can set up the scaling. So you can set up the start and stop voltages and your minimum and maximum ranges to scale that over.

Echoes

The next setting option is your multiecho setup and this is the number of echoes to be reported on from a single ping. Most applications the ISA500 is used just to give a single range reading but it can also give you multiple range readings from a single ping and you can set how many range readings you want the sensor to report on.

Connection

The next option is your connection so in this window here you can select the serial mode which  can be RS232, RS485 or RS485 terminated. You can also set the required baud rate together with the word length, parity and the number of stop bits required.

Output string

The next option is the output string. This is the output string for the distance reading. There’s a number of pre-configured strings and all of which are detailed in the ISA500 manual so you’ve got a number of Impact Subsea strings and you have a number of third-party strings to allow the ISA500 to emulate other altimeters in the market. If the particular string you require is not there you also have the custom button which allows you to create your own ASCII output string in the exact format which you require.

You can also set up in this window what the ISA500 should do if no returns are received whether it outputs a zero reading or a maximum reading and you can also tell it how many times you want it to ping an output to reading anywhere from well a fraction of a second up to up to 100Hz.

You can also set up the interrogation method so if you want to interrogate the ISA500 and command it to ping you can enable that and also set the parameter for it to respond to. You can also select interrogate via TTL if you want to trigger it via TTL and you can select whether it’s the falling edge or the rising edge of the TTL pulse which it triggers on.

AHRS settings

Then if you have an ISA500 which has integrated AHRS you’ll have the AHRS settings option. In here you can configure everything to do with the Heading Pitch and Roll. To start off with you can select the orientation, by default it’s assumed that the ISA500 has the connector pointing upwards and the transducer pointing downwards, however you can change it to be inverted or pitched over or rolled over. And these just set the reference point for your your Pitch, Roll and Heading to make sure you get accurate readings.  

Once installed on the vehicle if there’s any inaccuracies and how it’s been installed you can apply minor offsets to the heading pitch and roll. You can also apply a magnetic declination offset enable inertial mode, calibrate the magnetometers and set up your turns counter for the sensor as well.

AHRS output string

The last option to look at here is your AHRS output so this configures the ASCII output string for the heading pitch and roll side of things. And as before the number of Impact Subsea strings and there’s a number of industry standard strings as well. All of which are documented in the ISA500 manual and again as before if there’s a string you require which isn’t there or you want a slightly different string you have the custom option to go in edit a string or create an entirely new string to meet exactly what you require.

Like the altitude or range output you can select how many times per second the string is output. You can also enable interrogation and set up the parameter for the ISA500 to respond to and you can also have the output output on a TTL interrogation as well so that’s all the core ISA500 settings so if we return to the main screen.

If we look at the left hand side again there’s a ping button so you can manually trigger a ping from the sensor and there’s also a ping rate and this sets the ping rate of the sensor when it’s connected to the seaview software so it’s currently set to 1Hz.

We can increase it to 5Hz or 10Hz or we can set the sensor to run at maximum rate. If we set to maximum it’ll basically ping as fast as it can given your minimum maximum range setting. And as we change the ping rate you can see that green light flashes at the designated rate and that basically flashes once per ping on the sensor.

Record log file

At any time you can enable a log file by clicking here and it will record all the ISA500 readings to a log file and time stamp them. You can clear the graph data here if you want to start afresh. You’ve got display options so you can set exactly which parameters you want to be showing on screen. For example you could turn off the temperature we turn off the heading pitch and roll so you’ve just got altitude in the little 3D model for the ISA500, or you can enable all those back on again. Turn on the turns counter, so it will show you the number of turns the ISA500 has made.

Multi-echo output

And the last item I’ll show you here is the multi-echo output capability. If you click show multi-echo it’ll bring up another graph at the bottom of the screen. You can click and make this graph a bit larger and this graph will essentially show you every single return that ISA500 sees from a single pulse being sent out. It gives you a good appreciation of exactly the acoustic environment in which ISA500 finds itself. Or if you want to make multiple measurements to different targets that fall within the six degree conical beam from the ISA500, this is a good way to do it.

Multi-echo output

And the last item I’ll show you here is the multi-echo output capability. If you click show multi-echo it’ll bring up another graph at the bottom of the screen. You can click and make this graph a bit larger and this graph will essentially show you every single return that ISA500 sees from a single pulse being sent out. It gives you a good appreciation of exactly the acoustic environment in which ISA500 finds itself. Or if you want to make multiple measurements to different targets that fall within the six degree conical beam from the ISA500, this is a good way to do it.

ECHOGRAM

Since the above video was created, a new feature was added to seaView. For ISA500 sensors with ECHOGRAM enabled, the ECHOGRAM graph can be shown.

This provides full sonar backscatter data (up to 2,000 samples per ping). A full technical overview of ECHOGRAM can be found here.

Graph options

One other item to consider, on the right hand side of the screen we have a graph options button and this allows you to edit the graph display so you can turn off the fill and you can have it draw points for every ping, can turn off draw lines you can basically alter things to get the exact graph that you want to have on screen.

That’s the ISA500 application in seaView Software V3, if you have any questions regarding this please do not hesitate to contact us at support@impactsubsea.co.uk

Take a look at the ISA500 Product Page: ISA500 Altimeter

Learn more about how our altimeter works in this in-depth technical guide

Watch seaView Software overviews on our other sensors: YouTube playlist

seaView V3 provides a cutting-edge user interface for the setup and operation of Impact Subsea sensors including our AUV/ROV Sonar.

AUV/ROV Sonar – seaView Software Introduction

Transcript

Hi! I’m Ben and in this video we’re looking at the ISS360 AUV/ROV Sonar, software application in seaView V3.

When you first run seaView V3 you’ll be presented with this screen here. On the left hand side you have a list of the applications in seaView on the right hand side you have a list of all the communication ports on your computer and in the middle you have a list of any sensors that have been detected.

When seaView is first run it will automatically scan every com port at every known baud rate and will also scan your network to see if there’s any Impact Subsea sensors connected. In this instance it has detected two sensors – we have an ISA500 altimeter and also the ISS360 AUV/ROV Sonar.

The icon for each of these gives a little more detail about the connected sensors for example on the ISS360 AUV/ROV Sonar we can see the serial number the firmware version and also how it’s been connected in this instance we can see it’s been connected over the network and it’s displaying the IP address of the sonar.

Double-clicking on the sonar icon will take you into the ROV sonar app and the sonar will automatically start to scan. In this example we have a sonar running in the Impact Subsea test tank which is roughly a two meter diameter circular test tank and we can see that on screen showing up there.

In the middle of the screen we have the main sonar display on the right hand side, if you have a sonar with integrated pitch and roll, you get the pitch and roll readings and you also get a little graphic of the sonar showing any motion that is experiencing.

We also have a colour chart on the left hand side here so you can change the the colour palette of the sonar to suit your own preference. We typically use this kind of multicolour going from black to blue to green to yellow to red. This bar you can also lift up the lower red rectangle and this will remove all the weaker returns from the display as I move it up you can see only the stronger returns are left on the screen.

As I move it down it’ll start to include the weaker returns as well. Pushing it all the way to bottom means that all the returns will be shown on screen. There’s also a little red rectangle at the top of this this bar if you pull that down it’ll compress the bar and increase the contrast on the screen so pulling it down really far will make a very noisy solar image and really show all the strong returns very vividly and moving it up will decrease the contrast and just show it in its more normal state.

Down at the bottom of the screen we have a gain bar which is currently set to 35. If you increase that it’ll apply more software again to the sonar imagery if you decrease it it’ll remove the gain and essentially you want to set that to a level where you see everything you want to see and you remove any excess noise from the imagery.

The next item down the bottom of the screen is your range setting so you can decrease this to look closer in, down to one meter or you can increase this look further out anywhere up to 100 meters. As we’re working in a two meter tank we’ll just set it down to two meters.

You then have a selector which runs speed to quality and this sets the step size of the ISS360 AUV/ROV Sonar. If we set it to speed the sonar will take a very large step size between pings it will scan round very quickly if we move this bar more towards quality we slowly reduce the step size so it takes finer and finer steps and gives you a finer and finer resolution.

This comes with a trade-off in scanning speed so depending on your application you might want to set it to scan very quickly if you’re moving quickly or navigating underwater and if you get up to a target and you want to identify that target you can move this up to higher quality and get a higher resolution and better understanding of what you’re seeing.

AUV/ROV Sonar Acoustics setup

That’s the basic AUV/ROV Sonar interface, now to go through some of the more advanced features in the top left-hand corner we have a settings button and if you click on settings you’ll be presented with this screen here.

The first settings tab which pops up is your acoustic parameters. Now by default we leave this set to auto. This means as you adjust the range the sonar will automatically update the acoustic parameters to give you the best range and resolution capabilities.

If you don’t want to use this auto feature you can deselect this box and you can edit the start and end frequencies for doing a CHIRP or you could make them both the same if you want to do a continuous wave transmission from the sonar.

You can select the pulse length and also the pulse amplitude but for the majority of applications we recommend this is left to auto and just leave the sonar to determine the best settings for your range setting. You can also set the speed of sound here and you can also invert the sonar image here.

This is quite useful by default the sonar is intended to be run with the black boot end upwards and the connector downwards. If you’re running it the other way up so the boot end down, connector up, click the ‘Invert Sonar Image’ and it’ll just make sure that your your lefts and rights are correct on screen.

AUV/ROV Sonar – Connection

The next setting option we have is your connection, so here you can change the serial mode from RS232 to RS485 or RS485 Terminated and you can also select the baud rate. You can also use this window to set up your your network properties of your IP address, netmask and gateway. You can also enable DHCP if you require this.

Lastly if you have an AUV/ROV Sonar with ARS you’ll have the AHRS settings page. In here you can tell the sonar how it’s been mounted whether it’s the default value whether it’s inverted, whether it’s on its side and this will just ensure that your pitch and roll readings are all accurately referenced you can also input any minor offsets to account for installation error of the sonar.

You can also do a calibration of the magnetometer and select which axis the turns counter counts around whether it’s your Heading your Pitch or your Roll. Once you’ve changed any settings in here as soon as you click the green tick ‘Ok’ button these will be saved to the sonar firmware and those settings will be saved forever more regardless of power cycles.

The only time they’ll get changed is when you go back into seaView, connect to the sonar, make a change and click ‘Ok’ again. If you don’t want to apply the the changes you’ve made just click the the ‘Cancel’ button.

AUV/ROV Sonar – Bins and sector scan

Going back to the other options on the left hand side one is your bins and sector. Bins set to auto basically means it will take a number of samples in each ping to fill every single pixel on screen.

You can then set the AUV/ROV Sonar to a full 360 or you can set it to do a sector scan. Now setting it to a sector scan is very useful if you’re using it on an ROV and you want to look dead ahead or to the side or behind the vehicle and only update that one window.

You can also set the start and stop points of that window so you can narrow it down, you can make it wider it’s totally up to you to how you set that window.

You can also enable flyback. Now if you click on flyback the sonar will scan from the left to the right and then it’ll very quickly fly back scan from the left to the right. If you disable flyback it’ll scan from the left to the right and then it’ll scan from the right to the left so it’s really your preference and how you want the sonar to scan.

At any point you can click the full 360 and we’ll go back to doing a full 360 scan. At any point you can pause the sonar and start the sonar going again. You can reverse the direction of the scan using this button; this is quite useful if you see something moving in the water and you just want to temporarily scan back and forth across that target to track it or see what’s happening there.

AUV/ROV Sonar – Record a log file

You can record a log file if you want to record everything that’s happening for playback later on. You can open it using this button at any point you can clear the screen just to get rid of the historic data and it will start updating the screen again.

You also have a display button and this button can be used to turn on and off different features of the display for example we can turn off the range from the display, you can even turn off the scan line, the grid etc and you can turn things back on like heading around the sensor. You’ve got quite a few few options there.

You also have a reset view here so if you’ve used the mouse or used the zoom buttons here to zoom in and move around the screen to see something more detail you can use this reset button here to put it back to default. You can zoom in zoom out, you can use this feature here to take measurements, so you just click it and then you just click and drag on screen you take any measurements of the sonar imagery.

If you want to measure a target to understand it’s size it’s nice and quick and easy to do that. Again clicking the measurement will turn that off again.

There’s also a feature to add markers on the screen so if you see something of interest you can click on screen add a marker to it using the left mouse button and clicking the right mouse button will take that marker away. You can add multiple markers on screen if you wanted to highlight something to another user or just have them there to reference

That’s the ISS360 application in seaView Software V3, if you have any questions regarding this please do not hesitate to contact us at support@impactsubsea.co.uk

Learn more about how our ROV sonar works in this in-depth technical guide

Take a look at the ISS360 Product Page: ISS360 Imaging Sonar

Watch seaView Software overviews on our other sensors: YouTube playlist

The ISS360 & ISS360HD are compact imaging sonars widely used on underwater Remotely Operated and Autonomous Vehicles. These two sonars are also used in numerous stand-alone applications such as search and recovery.

Sonar Image Quality

A core consideration of any imaging sonar is the quality of the imagery.

For those already familiar with sonar terminology, the ISS360 provides a 2.2° angular resolution (at 700kHz) coupled with a 2.5mm range resolution and a distance measurement range of up to 90 meters/295 feet.   

The ISS360HD provides a 1° angular resolution (at 700kHz) a range resolution of 2.5mm and a distance measurement range of up to 100 meters/328 feet.

To provide further detail of how Range and Angular Resolution influence the image quality: 

Range Resolution

Range Resolution is the ability to distinguish between targets based on distance away from the sonar.  The lower this value the higher the resolution of the image.

Range Resolution is a particularly important factor to consider when working at shorter distances, as it will make a significant difference to the resolution of imagery you see on screen.  At greater distance, small details are missed due to the compression of the imagery on the computer display – so range resolution becomes a less critical factor for general imaging sonar use.

For operation at lower ranges, the ISS360/ISS360HD utilises a CHIRP (Compressed High Intensity Radar Pulse) from 600 to 900kHz. Range resolution of a CHIRP sonar system is equal to the velocity of sound/(bandwidth x 2). This enables a 2.5mm range resolution to be obtained in the ISS360 sonar.

For reference, a 200kHz bandwidth CHIRP would typically provide a 3.75mm range resolution and a 100kHz bandwidth CHIRP would provide a 7.5mm range resolution. 

If you consider a non-CHIRP sonar system which operates by transmitting single frequency pulses, the pulse length dictates range resolution. In a single frequency sonar system Range Resolution is equal to (pulse length x velocity of sound) / 2.  For example a 200μs single frequency pulse will give around a 150mm range resolution, assuming a speed of sound of 1,500 meters per second.

The images below are examples of how range resolution at short ranges compares. The image on the left is a single frequency 200μs pulse (150mm range resolution) and the image on the right is a CHIRP 200μs pulse with 100kHz bandwidth (7.5mm range resolution):

Angular Resolution

Angular Resolution is the ability to distinguish two targets which are at the same physical range away from the sonar (sitting side by side). This is defined by the horizontal acoustic beamwidth of the sonar. 

Angular resolution typically becomes more important as distance increases.  At longer distances the footprint of the acoustic beam will become one of the most influential factors in defining the image clarity.

The ISS360 has an angular resolution of 2.2° which is ideal for many applications.  The ISS360HD has an angular resolution of 1° which provides exceptional image quality.

The illustration below shows the acoustic beam from the ISS360.  This is then stepped 360° around the sonar to provide the full sonar plot.

IS³ Acoustics

In addition to CHIRP acoustic signalling the ISS360 & ISS360HD imaging sonars also benefit from the Impact Subsea Signalling Scheme (IS³).

IS³ uses advanced phase modulation and coding techniques to provide exceptional signal integrity, timing accuracy and range resolution. This scheme can be enabled or disabled within the sonar settings. When enabled, IS³ is used in conjunction with the standard sonar acoustic settings (alongside CHIRP at shorter ranges and single frequencies at longer ranges).

In addition to increasing range resolution, IS³ reduces the interference between multiple ISS360 Imaging Sonars operating in close proximity. This can be highly useful if multiple imaging sonars are in use on the same AUV or ROV.

Other Factors

Range Resolution and Angular Resolution are two of the main parameters used to define sonar image quality.  However there are other factors which come into play.

The acoustic detection method in use can make a large difference to the overall image quality, in terms of image noise level and range capability.  The ISS360 & ISS360HD use a digital correlation technique to detect the returning acoustic pulses. The two sonars do not employ any filtering of the incoming data. All incoming data is processed directly through the digital correlator to ensure no loss of quality.  The complete digital process without degradation of the incoming data is the reason the ISS360 sonar imagery often looks ‘cleaner’ than some alternative sonars of a comparable angular resolution.

There are also other elements affecting the displayed image, the quality of the electronic analogue front end design, transmit power, CHIRP implementation, detection algorithm, transducer design etc which will be unique to each sonar manufacturer.

The technical specification of a sonar system will provide a reasonable appreciation of what to expect from a sonar in terms of its capability. To take all possible factors into account however, study of the actual sonar imagery produced should be undertaken.  

Example imagery from the ISS360 & ISS360HD range of sonars can be found on the ISS360 page here.

Scanning Speed

In a perfect mechanically scanning sonar, scanning speed should only be limited by the travel time of the acoustic pulse (journey from sonar to maximum range and back again). 

The ISS360 & ISS360HD Sonars comes very close to this theoretical maximum scanning speed. This is achieved through two factors:

Ethernet Comms

In addition to Serial communications capabilities, RS232 and RS485, the ISS360 & ISS360HD also come with Ethernet communications capability as standard. This provides a high bandwidth communications channel which does not restrict the scanning speed of the sonar.

Processing Power

An advanced digital correlation technique is employed to detect the returning acoustic waveform. This correlator is run exceptionally fast utilising the ISS360/ISS360HD’s powerful internal processor.  

The high processing speed of the ISS360/ISS360HD’s hardware combined with the unrestricted communications path enables a very fast scanning speed.  This is particularly noticeable at lower ranges where processing power is critical. 

In third party benchmark testing against other popular scanning sonars in the market, the ISS360 was found to scan up to six times faster at shorter ranges.

For those using the sonar for the purpose of obstacle avoidance operations, this is a significant step forward from what was previously available.  For many applications the increased scanning speed negates the requirement to utilise a multibeam sonar for obstacle avoidance purposes. 

The video below shows the scanning speed of the ISS360 Sonar when operating over Ethernet communications. Low to high scanning resolutions are shown: 

Size & Weight

The ISS360 was developed to be the most compact, mechanically scanned imaging sonar in the world.

Highly compact with a weight of 0.37kg/0.82lbs in air ensures that the ISS360 is exceptionally easy to integrate onto all underwater vehicles – from observation to work class. The ISS360HD is slightly heavier at 0.76kg/1.675lbs in air.

Due to the use of the latest electronics and advanced digital acoustic engine, the compact sonar size has not compromised performance.  With the highly compact ISS360 and ISS360HD outperforming sonars which are many times its size. 

Reliability

The ISS360/ISS360HD benefits from an inductively coupled transducer.  This means there are no slip rings within the sonar so there are no components to wear out and require periodic replacement. 

The body is titanium, which provides an extremely robust and long lasting housing. The use of titanium instead of anodised aluminium ensures that the housing will not need to be periodically replaced.

The ISS360/ISS360HD also benefits from a fused comms lines, undervoltage protection and reverse voltage protection.

The above features enable a sonar which is very long lasting and highly resilient in tough environments. 

Software

The ISS360/ISS360HD operates with the Impact Subsea seaView V3 software, allowing seamless use alongside the Impact Subsea Altimeter, Depth Sensor, AHRS sensor, Profiling Sonars and FMD System.

A full overview of the ISS360/ISS360HD Sonar application within the seaView V3 software can be viewed below: 

For those wishing to use the ISS360/ISS360HD with an autonomous underwater vehicle, a Software Development Kit (SDK) is freely available to allow direct integration of the sonar. The SDK can be accessed on Github here. There is also an example project here.

Shown below is a seaView software screen, displaying the ISS360 Sonar operating alongside the Impact Subsea Depth Sensor, Altimeter and AHRS sensor:

Attitude Reference System

The ISS360/ISS360HD is optionally available with an in-built Attitude Reference System (ARS).  This provides Pitch and Roll as a viewable output.

Aside from a useful additional measurement parameter, the ARS can also be used to ensure that the ISS360/ISS360HD is perfectly level during standalone operation.  This will ensure that the maximum range is achieved in all directions around the sonar.

Physical Configuration

To ensure the ISS360/ISS360 is simple to integrate into any Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV), Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) or Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) the ISS360 is available in two configurations:

The ISS360HD is also available in two configurations:

Overall

The ISS360/ISS360HD series of imaging sonars provide excellent image quality and fast scanning speed. Presented in a compact and robust form factor makes the ISS360/ISS360HD ideal for a multitude of underwater applications.

If you would like to discuss the ISS360/ISS360HD in more detail, and how it can be used in your underwater application, please drop us an email at sales@impactsubsea.co.uk

Or alternatively, call us on +44 1224 460 850

The latest ISS360/ISS360HD Imaging Sonar datasheet, manual, 3D models and further technical information can be found on the product page

Watch and learn more about the ISS360/ISS360HD Imaging Sonar: YouTube playlist

The ISA200 & ISA500 are widely used as underwater Altimeters on Remotely Operated and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles.  The sensors are also used as high accuracy underwater ranging devices, providing distance measurement to any target aimed at.

Measurement Range:

A critical consideration when choosing an underwater Altimeter is how far away will it be able to detect the seabed (or other target) from.

The use of a digital correlation echo detection technique combined with a highly sensitive composite transducer enable the ISA500 to provide market leading range performance from a 500kHz frequency Altimeter.

The ISA500 is characterised as having a range capability in excess of 120 meters / 393 feet.  The ISA200 has a range in excess of 250 meters / 820 feet.

Both sensors operate on sonar technology – they transmit a pulse of sound and time how long it takes for the sound to return.  Based on the time taken, it calculates the distance travelled by the sound and derives the range to target.

The overall range capability will largely depend on the acoustic reflectivity of the item it is pointed at.  For example, if pointed at a seabed with a large amount of marine growth on the surface,  a reasonable proportion of the pulse of sound will be absorbed.  In which case a range of 80 meters/ 262 feet or less may be achievable with the ISA500. On the other hand, if the seabed has a strong reflector, such as solid rock, ranges in excess of 175 meters / 575 feet can be achieved with the ISA500.

The sensitivity of the ISA200 and ISA500 ensures that the longest range possible for the environment it is operating in can be achieved. 

Measurement Accuracy:

For many applications, accuracy and repeatability of the distance measurement are highly critical.

As mentioned previously, the ISA200 & ISA500 use an advanced digital correlation technique to detect the reflected pulse of sound.  This digital correlation is run 2,000,000 times per second.  This gives the ISA200 & ISA500 an accuracy level of 0.7mm which is then rounded up to the nearest 1mm.

This allows the ISA200 & ISA500 to provide 1mm accuracy and repeatability in range measurements.  This introduces the sensor to applications where previously only technologies such as a laser-based measurement systems would suffice.

A critical point to appreciate is that the ISA200/ISA500 offers 1mm accuracy as well as resolution.

When defining the capability of an Altimeter, it is important to recognise the difference between resolution and accuracy. A number of alternative Altimeters are quoted as having ‘1mm resolution’ which in itself is a relatively meaningless statement unless the Altimeter also has 1mm accuracy.  Otherwise, the sensor is simply providing centimetre level of accuracy to 1mm precision.

When choosing an Altimeter, one should always check what the measurement accuracy is – not just the resolution.

The below is a short example of the ISA500 achieving 1mm accuracy in distance measurement over a 1 meter range: 

Measurement Quality:

A key question with every reading from an underwater Altimeter is: how trustworthy is the reading which has been made?

In addition to the distance measurement value, a number of serial output strings from the ISA200/ISA500 also report back the energy level of the echo and a correlation factor.

The energy level ranges from 0 to 1, where 1 represents full saturation of the ISA200/ISA500 receiver. An energy level of 0.707 (square root of 2) is the theoretical perfect level as it represents the energy of a pure sine wave with an amplitude utilising the maximum dynamic range of the ISA200/ISA500.

The correlation factor ranges from 0 to 1, which represents a quality factor of the returned echo. A value of 1 would represent a return echo of perfection with negligible noise and distortion.  

The correlation value alone can be used as a trust factor where low values such as 0.3 would indicate that a reading is likely incorrect.  In practice, ISA200/ISA500 sensors are pre-set to ignore all returning echoes with a correlation level below 0.5.  This ensures every reading produced by the sensor is of a high quality level. 

A more detailed picture can be built by combining this information with the energy level as shown in the table:

With energy and correlation values, the quality of the distance reading provided by the ISA200/ISA500 is always clear. 

Acoustic Bandwidth:

The ISA500 can be operated at any frequency from 400 to 600kHz.  The performance across this bandwidth is relatively uniform, with a slight increase in performance at the 500kHz point.

The available bandwidth allows for multiple ISA500 sensors to be operated in close proximity, all at slightly offset operational frequencies.  This ensures that there is no interference between sensors.

The available bandwidth also allows for the sensor to be adjusted to another frequency to move it out of band of other acoustic devices in operation (Sonars, Profilers, DVLs etc).  Thus, ensuring there is no interference with third party systems.

ISA200/ISA500 Altimeter Interfacing:

The ISA200/ISA500 comes as standard with both RS232 and RS485 serial interfaces integrated into the sensor. 

The sensor can run directly into Impact Subsea’s seaView software or it can output any number of ASCII strings for integration into third party systems.  This includes proprietary Impact Subsea strings, but also the ability to emulate any other underwater Altimeter – making the ISA200/ISA500 a very simple sensor to retrofit to existing systems.

In addition, the ISA200/ISA500 has a voltage and current analogue output as standard which can be scaled across a user defined distance and output voltage/current.

ISA200 & ISA500 Altimeter Software Configuration:

One of the key benefits of the ISA200/ISA500 Altimeter is that all settings are entirely software configurable.  There is never a requirement to open the sensor – all settings can be adjusted using the freely available seaView software.

From an acoustic perspective: the detection mode, minimum and maximum ranges, pulse length, operational frequency etc., can all be altered to allow the ISA200/ISA500 to achieve the best performance possible in the application to hand.

The communications mode, output strings, update rate etc., can all also be configured using the seaView software and then saved to the sensors firmware.

The below video provides an overview of the ISA200/ISA500 application showing where all the core elements of the user interface are and highlights the settings available on the ISA200/ISA500 sensor itself.

Multi-Echo:

Most underwater Altimeters will output a single distance reading.  The ISA200/ISA500 can do this, however it also has the option to output the distance reading of every echo that is returned to the sensor.  This allows multiple targets to be tracked within the acoustic beamwidth of a single ISA200/ISA500.

Detection Mode:

The ISA200/ISA500 Altimeter has several detection modes available to select which returning echo is used when calculating the distance measurement.  

‘First’ detection mode will use the very first echo to be returned.  This mode is ideal for use in high multi-path environments such as water tanks.  Once the first echo has been returned, all other echoes will be ignored. 

‘Strongest’ detection mode will use the strongest (highest amplitude) echo returned.  In this mode smaller echoes will be ignored and only the largest reflected echo from the seabed used.  This provides very stable range measurements, especially helpful in applications with a large amount of suspended sediment (such as trenching). 

‘Seabed Tracking’ will use an algorithm to determine where the seabed is and will operate to track this range, ignoring any obviously incorrect readings. 

Echogram:

Optionally available on the ISA200/ISA500 is ECHOGRAM. This new feature adds a full backscatter capability to the ISa200/ISA500, enabling the underwater Altimeter to be upgraded to have a full single beam imaging sonar capability.

Underwater Altimeters typically provide only a single range reading per ping. However, with the addition of ECHOGRAM, the water column and seabed can be fully visualized, allowing for visual identification of targets. This provides up to 2,000 samples per ping, with each sample representing the correlation level of acoustic signal return at its particular point in the range.

Attitude & Heading Reference System:

The ISA200/ISA500 is optionally available with an in-built Attitude and Heading Reference System (AHRS).  This provides Heading, Pitch and Roll as a secondary output.

Aside from a useful additional measurement parameter, the AHRS can also be used internally within the ISA200/ISA500 to correct for Pitch and Roll.

Usually if the vehicle or asset which the Altimeter is mounted pitches or rolls, this causes the Altimeter to measure slant ranges and will make the Altitude reading rise up and down, despite there being no actual change in Altitude.  The AHRS can be used to correct for the pitch/roll by changing the slant range measurement into actual altitude through basic trigonometry.

This ability can be turned on and off in the ISA200/ISA500 settings.

ISA200 Altimeter – Physical Configuration:

Detailed chart of options available when purchasing an underwater altimeter

ISA500 Altimeter – Physical Configuration:

To ensure the ISA200/ISA500 is simple to integrate into any application, a variety of physical configurations exist. The ISA200/ISA500 is available in Titanium or Acetal materials, both used due to their longevity. 

The ISA200/ISA500 is also available in a forward looking or right angled housing and to a variety of depth ratings from 1,000 meters to 6,000 meters.  The ISA500 is also available to a depth rating of 11,000 meters. 

Alternative OEM options are also available for direct integration into your own housing if required.

For example, the Acetal Right Angled ISA500 sensors are a popular choice to use in towed Magnetometers.  OEM options are useful for small compact AUVs. The Titanium Forward Looking ISA200/ISA500 sensors are a popular choice for medium and workclass remotely operated vehicles. 

Robustness: 

The ISA200/ISA500 Altimeter has been designed and built with the highest levels of longevity and robustness in mind.

As already highlighted, the housing materials used are either Acetal or Titanium, chosen due to their longevity and strength.

The electronics are of commercial grade and are of single board design.  All components are low mass to ensure excellent shock and vibration performance.  No screws are used within the design, with a snap and lock together methodology being used to ensure no parts can come loose over time.  

The ISA200/ISA500 sensor has undergone vigorous environmental testing. This includes vibration, shock and thermal testing to meet the stringent requirements of API 17F qualification.

Overall:

The ISA200/ISA500 Altimeter/Echosounder/Ranger provides a long-range underwater measurement capability combined with a high level of accuracy.  

The ability to configure all aspects of the sensor via software enables the sensor to be easily tuned to suit the application at hand.

A robust design ensures that the ISA200/ISA500 is suitable for the most challenging of environments. 

If you would like to discuss the ISA2000 or ISA500 in more detail, and how it can be used in your underwater application, please drop us an email at support@impactsubsea.co.uk

Or alternatively, call us on +44 1224 460 850

The latest ISA200 and ISA500 Altimeter datasheet, manual, 3D models and further technical information can be found on the product page

Watch and learn more about the ISA200 & ISA500 Altimeter: YouTube playlist

We didn’t just want to make it smaller; we wanted to make it better. Alana and Andrew discuss how the ISS360 series visibility is breaking boundaries by incorporating features usually reserved for much larger systems:

• IS³ Impact Subsea Signalling Scheme: Using advanced phase modulation and coding techniques to provide exceptional signal integrity, timing accuracy and range resolution.
• Longevity: The unique use of inductive coupling means no slip rings to wear out, housed in a robust titanium shell and depth-rated to 6,000m.
• All-in-One Navigation: The option for integrated Pitch & Roll sensing capability from a single, tiny device.
• High-Speed Data: Utilising Ethernet comms to achieve update rates up to 6 times faster than conventional serial-only systems.

Whether you’re navigating a micro-ROV or conducting a large-scale AUV survey, this episode covers how the ISS360 provides a “step change” in underwater visibility.

See our case studies on how the ISS360 is being used in real-world projects.

Transcript – Is your underwater visibility holding you back?

Welcome back to the deep dive. So today we’re looking at a piece of engineering that is, I mean, it’s honestly punching way above its weight class. Way above. We’ve got the technical docs for the ISS360 and ISS360HD Imaging Sonars from Impact Subsea. And when I say weight class I mean that literally.

This thing is what 0.37kg. It’s tiny. I mean it’s just unbelievably small. And you know usually in underwater acoustics tiny often means toy right. A glorified fish finder. Exactly. low range, low resolution. But looking at the specs here, Impact Subsea has somehow crammed world class imaging into a body the size of a soda can, which is the mission for this deep dive, right? How did they pull that off? And it seems like the secret sauce really starts with the signal itself.

If you look at older mechanical sonars, they all rely on that single frequency pulse and that creates this huge bottleneck with something called range resolution. That is the big hurdle. Yeah. Range resolution is basically just the ability to tell that two objects are actually two distinct objects and not just one big blurry blob. Exactly. And in a standard system, that resolution is tied strictly to the pulse length.

So a typical setup might only distinguish objects if they’re what about 150mm apart, which is roughly 6in. That’s fine if you’re looking for a shipwreck, I guess, but it’s a total disaster if you’re trying to, you know, manipulate a valve with an ROV arm or inspect for hairline cracks. Yeah, precisely. So, the ISS360 just it ditches that single tone.

It uses CHIRP technology, Compressed High Intensity Radar Pulse, right? And instead of just hitting one note, it sweeps across this massive bandwidth from 600 all the way to 900 kHz. It’s like instead of hitting one key on a piano, the sonar just slides its finger across the whole upper register. That’s a great analogy, actually. And because it has that sweep, the processing can sharpen the image, well drastically.

We go from that 150 millimeter blur down to 2.5 millimeters. 2.5 millimeters. That is the main takeaway right there. You are getting nearly photographic detail seeing individual chain links solely because of that CHIRP bandwidth.

And it solves another massive headache, right? The noise. Oh yeah. They implemented what they call the Impact Subsea Signaling Scheme or IS cubed. It uses phase modulation. Yeah. So basically if you have five of these things working in a swarm, their sonars won’t blind each other. They can just tune out everyone else’s noise. Exactly.

Which is a perfect segue into, you know, the actual operation because clarity is one thing, but mechanical sonars are just, they’re agonizingly slow historically. That classic radar sweep effect. Yeah. You’re waiting for the head to physically spin, ping by ping. It’s usually the Achilles heel. But looking at the benchmarks here, the ISS360 is clocking scan speeds up to six times faster than comparable units, especially at short ranges. So, is that just a faster motor or is there more going on under the hood?

It’s the processing. It’s all in the processing. It uses a digital correlation technique with, and this is key, zero data filtering. It’s just crunching the raw acoustic data right there internally and shooting it over Ethernet instantly. And that’s crucial because it moves the device from being just for imaging to being for navigation, right? At that speed, you can actually use it for obstacle avoidance on a moving vehicle. You don’t need to bolt on a separate, you know, heavy multi-beam sonar just to keep from crashing into a wall. It simplifies the entire payload immensely. You’ve got one sensor doing the job of two.

Okay, so let’s talk about the hardware itself. I mean, saltwater, it just destroys electronics, and normally manufacturers use anodized aluminum, which is fine, I guess. It’s fine until you scratch it and then the pitting starts. Exactly. So, Impact Subsea. Just skip that entirely. The housing is solid titanium. It’s effectively immune to the environment. But the part that really stood out to me is the inductively coupled transducer. Ah the solution to the slip ring problem, right? It is in a mechanical sonar that head has to spin 360° constantly.

Traditionally you use physical slip rings to keep that electrical connection which are just contact points. They use friction. They wear out. They wear out. They fail. It’s a major point of failure. So by using inductive coupling, they’re transferring power and data magnetically. There’s no physical contact at all. No friction points. Zero. You could theoretically spin that head for 10 years straight and the connection quality wouldn’t degrade for a long-term deployment. I mean, that’s a game changer.

And it really seems like they’re targeting the autonomous market pretty hard with this. I noticed they have their seaView V3 Software, but they also just threw the SDK up on GitHub. And that is the final piece of the puzzle, isn’t it? By making the integration open source, they aren’t just selling you a camera. They are selling a core sensor for autonomous robots. Right. So developers can integrate this directly into their vehicle’s control loop.

So let’s put it all together for you. You have a titanium unit that doesn’t corrode. It has no slip rings that can wear out. It sees with millimeter precision using CHIRP. And it’s fast enough for a robot to actually drive itself. It really feels like the hardware has finally caught up to the software. Yeah, we have been talking about autonomous underwater swarms for years, but the sensors were always too big or too slow.

Which leaves us with a thought to chew on. If you have sensors that are this small, this durable and they don’t interfere with each other are we finally looking at the infrastructure that makes large scale collaborative underwater drone swarms a reality? The barrier to entry just got a lot lower. Something to watch for sure.

Thanks for diving in with us. My pleasure. Catch you on the next one.

Watch the film ‘Is your underwater visibility holding you back?’ on YouTube

Transcript

Hi and welcome to this video which provides an overview of the ISP360 Profiler Sonar application within the Impact Subsea seaView Software.

Shown on the screen here is an example of what you’ll see when you first run seaView. On the left hand side you have a list of applications which are installed in seaView, in the middle of the screen you have any devices any Impact Subsea sensors which have been detected and on the right hand side of the screen we have a list of any communication ports and network ports which your computer has.

Now when seaView first runs it’ll automatically scan all communication ports at every known baud rate and your network as well for any Impact Subsea sensors. So this has happened and we’ve got two Impact Subsea ISP360 profilers that have been detected.

Shown here are the two tiles for them and so tiles give you some information about the the sensor connected, it’ll tell you the serial number, the firmware on it, it will also tell you how it’s been connected and both of these profilers are connected over our Network so we can see the IP address which both profiler has.

Now to start using the profiler you simply double click on the profiler and in this example we’ll use number 11 here and double clicking on the profiler, it will take you straight into the ISP360 profiling application and the profiler will automatically start to scan and generate points on screen. Now in this example here we’ve deployed the profiler into the Impact Subsea test tank which is a rectangle test tank so we’ll be getting imagery from that today.

Shown on the screen just now we can see the profiler scanning away. Right now it’s doing a sector scan of approximately 90° and it’s got a range of 10 m set. In the middle of the screen you’ve got your raw data on the right hand side of the screen you’ve got got any attitude data so the pitch and roll the sensor at the left hand side you have a number of settings and down at the bottom you’ve got the most common settings that you’re likely to need to change as you set up a profiler for a particular application.

I’ll run through the common settings initially. The first is you can select which profiler these apply to. Now in this example here we only actually have one profiler connected but if you have multiple profilers connected you can select all if you want the settings to apply to every profiler or you can select the individual profiler if you want to set up individual settings for each one. We’ll leave it set to all just now.

Gain adjusts the imagery on the screen. Right now we don’t have any imagery purely showing profiler points we’ll come back to Gain in a little while. Next you have the resolution setting so you can move this from Speed to Quality. If you move it towards Speed the profiler will take physically larger steps as it scans. It’ll scan very quickly on a 7.2° step. If you move it up towards Quality the profiler will take smaller and smaller steps. Right now set it to 0.225° so it’s taking a very fine steps and it’s generating a lot of points.

Then we have the frequency toggle so the ISP360 profiler is a wide bandwidth sonar you can run it anywhere from 650 khz up to 1.25 MHz when you’re running at 650 khz the profiler has a 2° conical beam and it’ll get longer range. When you run at 1.25 MHz the range comes down but the beam comes down as well down to 1° so you get a higher resolution imagery. You can toggle between the two frequencies just by moving that slider.

Next you’ve got a Bins and Sector, this is where you can manually adjust just the the sector if you want a very particular sector for the profiler to scan over. You can also set the number of Bins which are shown on screen. This is purely the number of samples which are shown on the the imagery on the screen itself.

You also have the option of Use Flyback. When Use Flyback is selected the profiler will scan one way and then fly back and then scan again so you can see that happening just now, it’s scanning one way, then it pauses, the transducer flies back to the right hand side and it scans again. If we disable Use Flyback the profiler will scan back and forth so you can see it continues to scan and generates points both directions.

The last box here is a quick sector selection so you can quickly tell the profiler which direction you want to profile around. By default the profiler I will start pretty much as shown on the screen here and it’s scanning about the North marker on the profiler itself but we can adjust this so if we wanted to do a full 360 degree scan so get points generated all around the profiler we can quickly adjust it to do just that. Lets drop the quality down a little bit so it takes bigger steps, generates points more quickly.

Down at the very bottom of the screen we have some more settings, the first is minimum range. The minimum range anything below this value the profiler will ignore and so generally it’ll be set to around .4 as that’s the minimum range the profiler can start generating points from but it’s a means to gate your data so if you know that the target you’re wanting to profile is say more than a meter away you can increase this to 1 meter and then it won’t generate any points within 1 meter of the profiler.

Likewise you can adjust your maximum range, right now it’s set to 10m but our tank is not 10m wide so we can reduce the range here down to a more shorter range, let’s say 3.5m that way we can get a closer look at our tank.

The last setting down here is energy threshold so the energy threshold allows you to dictate how many points are on the screen. So a threshold of zero, it’ll show you every single acoustic return that it’s detected and some of that may be noise so we’re getting a little bit of noise in the tank just now so what we can do is we can increase the energy threshold.

Increasing the energy threshold will remove the weaker profiling points and you can push that up until you’re at a point where you’re quite happy with the data you’re getting, you’re getting all correct data and there’s very little noise present. If you push it up too far you’ll find it removes a lot of the data and only the very strong returns will be left and so it’s good to adjust that to make sure that you’re happy with the data level.

Once you’re happy with the data level and you’ve got your required sector scan at that point you can set up an output from the profiler either log the data to a log file locally on computer or you can set up an output string to go out to a survey computer for external logging and external processing.

They’re the key settings that you’re likely to change on a day-to-day basis, just as you’re working through a project. The other settings you have down the side here, the very top one is the main settings for the profiler sensor itself. If you click on that, you bring up the profiler setup so this is the profiler we have here.

Here we can tell the depth it’s at, any rotation, we can add in here, if you’ve mounted the profile with a slight physical offset either on purpose or by accident, you can put in a manual rotation. It’ll just rotate all the imagery on the screen. This is particularly useful if you multiple profilers and you’re trying to overlap the imagery and ensure everything aligns up correctly.

You can also go into the settings of the profiler from here. These settings pages are similar to the other Impact Subsea sensors. The first is the Acoustics side so in here you can set this to Auto and it’ll adjust the Acoustics automatically for the range that you set. If you disable the auto function you can go in there and manually edit the Acoustics so you can edit the frequency it’s run at, you can change it to be a CHIRP you can change pulse length, pulse amplitude etc.

In general, unless you’re wanting to experiment with Acoustics or you’ve got a good understanding of Acoustics it’s best to leave that just checked to Auto, that way the Acoustics will be automatically adjusted for you and if you have multiple profilers the Acoustics will be adjusted accordingly.

You can also set your speed of sound here, you can select whether 16 bit or 8 bit data is used this is not so relevant if you have an ethernet connection but potentially if you’ve got a serial connection of quite low bandwidth you can drop the data down to 8 bit data. That will just speed up the the scan rate of the profiler. You can mirror the sonar image, so mirror sonar image by default the imagery on screen assumes that the profiler has been installed that way up.

If you select mirror sonar image, it tells the sonar that it’s been installed upside down. Mirror sonar image is selected just now because the profiler in the tank has been installed upside down.

The last acoustic item to cover here is we’ve got the IS³ mode. If you click on there you’ll find there’s Mode A and Mode B. Generally if you’re running just one profile at a time leave it set to Mode A. If you’re running two profilers have one profiler set to Mode A and the second profiler set to Mode B. This will reduce the interference between the two profilers, allow them to run together with minimal interference.

The next option you’ve got here is IS³ signaling scheme so you can adjust this to have a bias towards giving you the highest resolution of data or you can reduce it down to give you the longest range capability. If you go for the highest resolution data basically it sends a a longer, more complex code. It allows you to get a little bit better timing accuracy and it gives you a higher resolution of data. If you move it down towards range the code becomes shorter and simpler and extends the range out to the profiler. For most applications where you’re working under 10m in range it’s best just leave it set to the highest resolution setting.

Here you can also change the connection settings so you can change the communications mode of the profiler from RS232 to RS485 or RS485 Terminated where it’ll add the termination resistor automatically within the profiler itself. You can also set the baud rate. For maximum scanning speed you want the highest baud rate but if you’re running over very long length of twisted pair or older degraded twisted pair you may need to reduce that baud rate in order to maintain stable communications. If you’re running the profiler over a network you can set up the IP address, subnet mass, gateway etc.

Connection mode, if you’re running onto a network where IP addresses are automatically given, you can click use DHCP that will fit into the the network you’re connecting to. There’s other profiling options here. The first is the echo mode so when the profiler sends out a ping you can choose whether it Triggers on the first Echo it sees back or the strongest Echo.

The first Echo will trigger on any echo which comes back first so it might be the the target you’re looking for but it could also be a fish or suspended sediment or anything else which is in the water between the profiler and the target. If you select strongest Echo it’ll send out a ping it’ll listen to every single echo which comes back across the range I’ll pick the one of the highest amplitude which will generally be the target you’re looking for.

In this window you can also turn gating on and off so gating will speed up the profiler by telling it that you want to scan to a particular range. If you set the profiler to say a 1m range and you turn gating mode on, it’ll scan to 1m directly below it it’ll maintain that same 1m distance across the whole sector of the scan so if you do a 90° sector scan it’ll be one meter there and it’ll create 1m out to the end of the 90 it almost creates a rectangular range.

In the AHRS settings here you can tell the profile exactly how it’s installed for the purposes of giving you pitch and roll data so you can tell it, it’s inverted as we’ve shown here. You can change it to default if you want that way put around the other way this basically just changes the reference point from which pitch and roll are read. Any offsets on the the pitch and roll you can also enter in here as you’re using the turns counter you can also set up where count turns around.

That’s all the the main settings there so if we go back to the the main page here one other thing to show you actually is the the point color you can change the color of the points shown on screen so by clicking there and selecting a different color you can choose virtually any color that takes your fancy.

We’ve closed down the profiler setup the other options you’ve got down side here is you got pause and run and you can reverse the direction of the scan by clicking there. Here importantly you can set up your log format and output data.

If we click on this button here, at the moment we’ve got no outputs there’s nothing being output from the computer so we can click on Add Output and this will allow us to configure an output string. There’s several default strings in there, there’s Impact Subsea profiler string and the exact detail of that string that ASCII string is detailed in the ISP360 manual so if you have a look there you’ll see the the detail of that.

We can select whether this is saved to a log file or output on a comm port and if it’s output on the comm port you can set up the comm port and the baud rate and then you can click start output. It’ll start outputting that data you can see the data being output there as the profiler scans round. That’s raw profiling data which you can then utilise for servey purposes. If you want to stop the output just click stop and it’ll stop the data being output.

Going back to the settings here we’ve also got clear image if you click that it’ll just wipe the image on screen and start repopulating it with new data. You’ve got display options so this allows you to turn on and off various different parts of the display so you can turn on off the polar grid you can turn off the scan line if you wish and this one here is quite interesting this is the show image so if you turn show image on it will show you the raw sonar data kind of like Imaging sonar data, so you can see the raw acoustic environment which the profiler is operating in and it can help understand why it’s digitising certain points.

You can turn on of the coordinates if coordinates are on you get this little coordinates detail down here just showing where the cursor is located on the screen. You can turn on and off an XY grid, the scaling will be automatic but you can turn scaling off if you want to make the the grid smaller or finer.

You can adjust the point size here so you can make the profiler points smaller, it’s in pixels, or you can make them larger, really just to suit the display you’ve got and how big or small you want the points.

You can turn on and off the range display from the polar plot. You can turn the palette off from the left hand side you can turn the smoothing on and off smoothing and palette they really just refer to the image here so they affect how the image looks.

If you’ve got GPS feeding into the system you can turn the GPS display on off. You can also turn on and off the AHRS if you don’t want the pitch and roll showing from the profiler you can turn them on and off can also turn on and off the individual components of that as well.

If you’ve zoomed in to point to the display there’s a quick way to zoom back out again which is to click there and you can manually zoom in manually zoom out there you can also zoom in and out just by scrolling the mouse wheel as well which is often the easier option.

If you want to take a quick measurement on screen you can click the measurement tool and simply drag it across the screen like that and you can take a quick measurement so you can check measurements as they are on screen rather than trying to manually judge it.

If you’re doing a a pipe profiling application and you can turn on and off a pipe on screen which will allow you to place an overlay on the pipe which is being scanned.

If you have the imagery showing on screen you can adjust the color palette here so you can change it to different color palettes you can also adjust the threshold or the contrast there and the threshold here so adjust the imagery to suit. Of note the imagery shown on screen doesn’t affect the raw profiler output. This change here that’s purely a visual change, it won’t change the data being output from the system the data output from the system is basically all the digitized points that are shown on screen.

Other than that you can do a general log file you can start logging data here and you can save it to a log file. This will be saved in the Impact Subsea proprietary standard. This type of logging is really just to save the log file for replay through seaView again later on. Of note if you do save the log file here and then when you go to replay the log file you can then set up an output from that log file through a comm port or to a survey so there is always a means to extract the data out with seaView.

You can also open logs from here you can open previously save logs and replay them. Any notifications that seaView receives will be shown here so if you start logging, close logging, if a device is connected, if a device has got bad comms, maybe it’s a broken cable etc, you’ll get notifications here. which will guide you on what might need to be checked or inspected.

You can take a screenshot at any point so if there’s something on screen that’s of Interest, click the screenshot button, you can give the file a name, click the tick and it will save that image to your computer.

You can click this button to go full screen so it’ll just go to the full screen of your monitor and you’ve got another settings button here which is really to do with the seaView itself. Here you can set up where screenshots are saved, where log files are saved, which units you want to use, whether it’s a metric or imperial measurement system, any licenses you can activate here. There’s no licenses for the profiler and so this is really for FMD and ECHOGRAM and other sensors that we have.

You can select the styles you can change seaView from a dark theme to a light theme if you want. You can also adjust the font size of everything on screen so depending on the resolution of your monitor you can adjust things to look exactly as you like them. If you click on system, it’ll give you the system information so it’ll tell you the exact version of seaView and a few other details there if ever you have a technical question or a support issue, our team may ask you for this information just so we fully understand which version of seaView you’ve got.

Lastly if you click on the Impact Subsea icon it’ll take you to our website and on our website you’ll find more information about all of our sensors in terms of the ISP360 profiler, you’ll find the datasheet, the manual, 3D models of the device. If you want to have them to integrate into a model of your vehicle and more technical information as well.

For further information on the ISP360 please see our website at www.ImpactSubsea.co.uk

► OUR PRODUCTS ◄

► SUBSCRIBE ◄

► LETS CONNECT: ◄

👉 LinkedIn

👉 Twitter

👉 Facebook

👉 Instagram

► GET IN TOUCH ◄

EMAIL: info@impactsubsea.co.uk

PHONE: +44 (0)1224 460 850

Monday – Friday, 9AM – 5PM GMT

Transcript

Hi, welcome to this video covering the use of two Impact Subsea Profiler Sonars.

Shown on the screen is our seaView Software and seaView has automatically detected two profilers connected to the computer. When you first run seaView it’ll scan all your comm ports and all network connections looking for Impact Subsea sensors. In this case it’s identified two profilers.

To start the profiling process simply double click on one of the profilers. It’ll take you into the ISP360 profiling application. The profiler sonar will automatically start to scan and generate profiling points on screen. The default settings for the profiler is a 90° profiling window and a 10m range and 0.4m minimum range.

A number of these settings will need to be adjusted to suit the profiling application being undertaken. To add a second profiler to the system we go to the profiler setup settings button, click on that. This will bring up the window showing all profilers currently connected to this application. If we click the green plus button to add a profiler it’ll add a second profiler display to the window. At this point we can allocate a profiler to that display. It will allocate the second profiler. As soon as that is allocated, it’ll start to scan and generate data points on screen.

When you add a second profiler sonar it automatically adds offset of 10m so this needs to be adjusted to reflect the actual physical offset between the two profilers. In the test setup we have here, we’ve set a 1.46m offset between the two. Entering that offset will bring the two profiler images together and overlap the data accurately. By default, when you’re doing a survey or say a pipeline survey, the two profilers should be mounted side by side with the notch mark on the end cap pointing directly towards the seabed.

If there’s any angular error in this installation, potentially one of the profilers is rotated slightly you can enter a rotational offset here to correct for that misalignment. Our particular installation here we’ve got a misalignment in profile two of 3° so I’ll enter in a 3° offset here and it’ll just rotate the data by 3° which will give us a more consistent overlap of data and the seabed will look flat.

At this point we’ve got the two profile running, we’ve got the offset between them input and any rotational corrections added. By default the first profiler sonar points are all red and the second profile points are all green if you’re not happy with the colors you can click on the color and you can edit it in the color editor to any color of your choice.

At this point the two profilers are set up to run together so we can close down the profiler setup window. Down at the bottom of the screen you can configure each of the profilers. The first drop down to look at is all, profiler one, profiler 2. If it’s selected all, then any adjustments you make to the gain, the speed, the frequency, will automatically be set in both profilers at the same time.

If you want to make an adjustment to just one of the profilers you can select the profiler you want to make adjustment to, adjust the range, speed etc. Then you go to the second profiler and make any tweaks there. To get set up quickly you generally want both profiler sonars to have a similar setup so we’ll select all and we’ll set up our our ranges initially in this example here we’ve dropped two profilers into one of the Impact Subsea test tanks.

It’s a rectangular test tank. We’ve also dropped in a plastic pipe to simulate a pipeline sitting on the seabed. The pipeline we’ve or the plastic pipe we’ve put in is around about 2m away from the the profiler so we’ll set our minimum range to 1 meter as there’s nothing within a meter of the profiler which is of Interest so we don’t want any profiling points within a meter and we’ll bring our maximum range down to 2m. So that should give us everything that we’re interested in.

At this point we’ve got the two profiler sonars set to give us the the minimum range want and the correct maximum range. At this point we want to introduce an energy threshold so right now the energy threshold is set to zero which means the profilers are digitizing every Echo they hear back. We’re in an acoustic test tank which makes it quite acoustically noisy as sound bounces around so what we want to do is we want to increase that threshold basically to remove the weaker echoes in the tank and just leave us with the the stronger data, data we’d actually want to log an output for survey purposes.

At this point we can see the the wall of the tank and we can see the pipe sitting there as well. We’re getting quite nice data. You might want to fine tune each profiler sonar to get more points so for example if we go to profiler one, we can adjust the energy threshold, maybe just slightly down, just to give us a few more points off the tank wall.

The profiler two looks pretty good, we can also adjust the the gain now. This gain here only applies to the imagery on screen at the moment we’ve only got profiling data so the profiling data is the data which is output from the system to survey or to a log file.

We can also view the raw acoustic imagery. You click on display options and go to show image you’ll see the full acoustic environment which the profiler sees. At this point the the gain on screen can be adjusted. You’ll see the gain change, put it back to both profiler sonars we adjust the gain on both the images at the same time. You can also change the threshold for the background imagery, increase the contrast and you can change the the palette as well if you’re not happy with the the colors. Once you’ve got that, you can turn off the imagery and just view the raw profiler points.

Something else to be aware of so we’ve got the two profilers set up in the profiler setup here and if you click on the settings of either of the profilers you can actually get into more detailed settings for each profiler. One is the profiling setup so both profiler sonars are set to operate on strongest echo just now but what I want to discuss here is the acoustic setup.

If you leave acoustic set to Auto as you adjust the range of the profilers the acoustic settings will automatically be adjusted in the background by the software, that’s probably the best thing to do. One thing to bear in mind when you’re running two profilers is you want to set one profiler to have Mode A, IS³ Acoustics, the second profiler to have Mode B, IS³ Acoustics. This will assure that the two profilers do not interfere with each other as they’ll be using different signaling schemes.

That’s the two profiles drawing together gathering data. The data looks pretty nice, pretty clean so at this point we’d probably want to output that data either to a log file or to a third party computer or application.

You can configure a log or output data by clicking this button here and click add output, you can select from some of the predefined output strings. You can say whether you want to go to log file or comm port. We’ll set up for comm port here, triggered per ping, we’ll send it out COM3 and we’ll send it out to 115200. That’s set up and click on start output, it’ll output that data on that comm port.

That’s a basic overview of running two profiler sonars together, for more information on the ISP360 please go to www.ImpactSubsea.co.uk and there you’ll find a profiler page where you can download the datasheet, manual and other technical information.

► OUR PRODUCTS ◄

► SUBSCRIBE ◄

► LETS CONNECT: ◄

👉 LinkedIn

👉 Twitter

👉 Facebook

👉 Instagram

► GET IN TOUCH ◄

EMAIL: info@impactsubsea.co.uk

PHONE: +44 (0)1224 460 850

Monday – Friday, 9AM – 5PM GMT

These high-performance, mechanically scanned profiling sonars are a game-changer for subsea measurement. It boasts an impressive 1° Acoustic Angular Resolution, 80-meter range and a 0.35mm timing accuracy, making it ideal for applications like pipeline and trench profiling, as well as asset positioning.

Ready to learn more about the ISP360 and our full range of innovative sensors? Head over to the ISP360 Profiling Sonar page.

Transcript – ISP360 Profiling Sonars – Podcast

Okay, let’s unpack this. Imagine you’re trying to map, say, a complex underwater structure, maybe an oil field, or inspect a pipeline down there. Yeah. You need really precise data and fast. Exactly. And sometimes, you know, one sensor just isn’t enough. But then, how do you get multiple, really powerful systems to play nice together without interfering?

That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Well, welcome everyone to a deep dive into some pretty advanced Subsea tech. Today we’re looking at exactly that challenge. Specifically, how Impact Subsea V3 handles dual ISP360 sonars. These are for AUVs and ROVs, right? Those profiler sonars. Our insights are coming straight from an overview that demonstrates how this software actually works in practice.

So, our mission today to really get how these sensors work together, the specific hurdles they overcome and honestly, the kind of surprising precision needed for good underwater data. There are definitely some neat tricks involved. Okay, so here’s where it starts getting really interesting.

Sensor Detection

I think the seaView software V3, it’s smart right from the get-go. Yeah, it is. You power it up and it just automatically finds and connects your Impact Subsea sensors. Scans all the comm ports, network connections, everything. You don’t have to do much initially. Exactly. It’s built for efficiency. Starting a single ISP360 profiler, just a double click. And that’s the sensor that maps the seafloor using sound pulses right on the ROV.

Default Settings

Precisely the ISP360, it creates these detailed 3D pictures underwater and by default it kicks off with a 90° scanning window. 90°. Yeah, like a quarter circle ahead. And the range is set usually about 10m out, but with a minimum range of just under half a meter. Perfect for getting up close. Definitely good for close-up inspection work.

Calibration

So, okay, first sensor is running. Easy enough. Now, what about adding that second profiler? Is it just another double click or is there more to it? Well, it’s not quite plug-and-play at that point. Connecting it is easy, yes, but the crucial part is calibration. Getting them to work together. Calibration. Think of it like getting both your eyes to focus on the same spot. You need to tell the software how they’re positioned relative to each other.

Makes sense. First, there’s the physical offset. The example we looked at mentioned, 1.46 m. You dial that in and visually the two images, the data from both profilers, they just sort of slide together so they overlap correctly. Exactly. So you get a combined picture.

Rotational Offset

But then there’s also the rotational offset. Rotational. What does that mean here? Well, maybe one sensor is tilted just slightly compared to the other. Even a tiny bit, say 3° like in the example. If you don’t correct for that, the data gets skewed, right? Your nice flat seabed might look well warped or worse if you’re laying pipe based on that data. A few degrees off could mean meters off course over distance. Wow. Okay. So, you adjust that rotation to make the seabed look flat in the combined data.

Precisely. And visually, the software helps. By default, one sensor shows up as red points, the other green. Helps you see what’s what, though you can change those colors. That attention to detail is pretty incredible. A few degrees makes that much difference. Sure. So, okay, our sensors are aligned like two eyes working together.

Optimizing Settings

What about the environment? Underwater can be noisy, right? Yeah. How do you get clean data? Good question. It’s all about optimizing the settings and filtering. You can tweak both profilers together using an ‘all’ setting or adjust them one by one.

Okay. So, the source material showed this test tank setup, a rectangular tank, and they had a plastic pipe in there, maybe 2m away, to simulate a pipeline. To focus just on that pipe, you’d adjust the ranges. Maybe set the minimum range to 1m and the maximum to say 2m. That tells the sonar, ignore stuff that’s too close or too far, just show me what’s in the zone. Concentrates the view.

Energy Threshold

Exactly. But then the really crucial bit, especially in noisy places like a test tank, is the energy threshold. Energy threshold. What’s that doing? Think of it like a filter for sound strength. It tells the software, look, ignore any really weak echoes, the faint stuff, that’s usually just noise, acoustic clutter, especially in a tank. Ah, so it cuts out the static pretty much. It ensures you only log the strong clear returns that are actually hitting your target like that pipe. So the data you save for the survey is much cleaner. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

Adjusting the Image

You can also view the raw acoustic image too, right? Tweak that. Oh yeah, absolutely. You can adjust, gain, contrast, change the color palette on the raw sonar image if you need to visually pick things out differently.

IS³ Signalling Scheme

Okay, this leads to maybe the biggest challenge I was thinking about. You’ve got two powerful sonars pinging away side by side. How on earth do they not just completely mess up each other’s signals? Acoustic interference seems inevitable, right? You’d think so, but this is where something really clever comes in. It’s fascinating, actually. What’s the secret?

The key is you set one profiler to mode A IS³ acoustics and the other one to mode B IS³ acoustics. Mode A and mode B. Yeah. Essentially, they use different signaling schemes, different ways of sending out and listening for their sound pulses. Like they’re talking on different radio channel. That’s a great analogy. They’re in the same space, but they’re not stepping on each other’s transmissions because the frequencies or patterns are distinct. So, no acoustic interference.

So, the software handles that switching or do you have to set it manually? You select mode A for one and mode B for the other. Often other acoustic settings can just be left on auto. The system’s pretty smart. But separating them into mode A and B is fundamental for dual operation. That is ingenious. Solves a huge potential problem. Absolutely. And once you’ve got all that dialed in, the offsets, the ranges, the threshold, the modes, the system just works.

Data Output

And the output, where does all this clean data go? It streams it out usually to a log file you can analyze later or it can send it directly to like a third party computer or another application. You just configure the comm the example use COM3 at a high speed 115200 baud and it sends the process data right over ready for immediate analysis for pipeline routes seabed maps whatever the mission requires precise object identification mapping you name it.

Conclusion

So, we’ve really seen the meticulous setup involved here, making two advanced sensors act like one seamless system. It really shows how crucial sophisticated software is to unlock what the hardware can do. It really does. And you know, this coordination, it raises a bigger question, I think. Yeah. Go on. How fundamental this idea is. You mean the coordinated interference-free operation, making sure sensors can talk without drowning each other out?

Exactly. It’s critical for subsea. Sure. But think about it everywhere else, right? Complex systems we rely on every day. Self-driving cars with multiple sensors, medical imaging. True. They all need multiple eyes or ears sharing the same space.

So the thought for you, our listener, is this. As we put more and more sensors into complex environments, what new challenges pop up? And what kinds of clever solutions like these acoustic modes will we need to invent next to ensure everything works together without getting tangled? Something to think about.

Find out more about the ISP360 Profiling Sonar.

seaView V3 provides a cutting-edge user interface for the setup and operation of Impact Subsea sensors. The launch of seaView V3 is accompanied by the release of a third generation of sensor firmware.

ISFMD seaView overview – Transcript

Hi I’m Ben and in this video we’re looking at the Impact Subsea Flooded Member Detection System and seaView V3.

Once you’ve installed seaView V3 either by downloading it from our website or from the USB drive supplied with the ISFMD System you’ll have the seaView icon on your desktop.

If you run seaView you’ll be presented with this screen here. Now on the left hand side we have a list of all applications within seaView. In the middle of the screen we have a list of any sensors that have been detected by seaView. On the right hand side we have a list of any communication ports on your pc.

When seaView is first run it will automatically scan all communication ports, at every known baud rate and pick up any sensors connected to your computer. In this example here, the software has picked up an Impact Subsea ISS360 sonar and also the ISA500 FMD probe.

Installing the ISFMD licence

For the purposes of flooded member detection we want to click on the ISA500 probe and we want to click on the ISFMD app in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. When you do this, you’ll be presented with this screen here.

Initial running you’ll have a warning pop-up which basically states that this application requires a license in order to be operated. You can install your license either by clicking on the warning or by clicking on the settings button in the top right hand corner of the screen.

If we click on the warning that’ll take us to the installation page for any licenses. The license file will be provided on the USB drive which came with the system so if you insert the drive and click browse you’ll be able to find the file.

Click open and the file will automatically be installed. Once you click close that’s the license installed in seaView and you won’t ever have to do this again, it’s a one-time operation. Now we’ve done that, the warnings disappeared and the system is now ready to be used.

Application main screen

To talk through the application itself; on the top left hand corner we have a little 3D model of the ISFMD probe. If I take the ISA500 ISFMD probe and move it around you can see on screen it moves in real time, as I move the probe.

This is really useful for whoever is operating the software, they can see exactly how the the probe is being held, either by the ROV or by the diver. Thanks to the 3D model, we have a little visual graphic of the ISA500 probe, with the ping button below it.

In this graphic here the probe is shown pushed up against a member. We’ve got a cross cut of the member which shows the the green acoustic beam going from the ISA500 probe, through the member and hitting the the back wall of the member.

We also have a blue box around the back wall of the member and this is the area in which the system will be looking for any returns which would suggest a flooded member. On the right hand side it gives you an estimated fill which will either be dry, part filled or flooded.

The lower, left-hand corner we have a list of members which we’re going to test. In the middle of the screen we have the details of the member which is currently under test and the lower right hand side we have a list of all the readings we’ve taken so far.

Set up first member

The first thing to do is to set up the first member so we’ll give it a name and we’ll just call this test member.

The next thing to do is to ensure that the diameter of the member has been correctly entered into the software. This is the most critical item to enter into the software and make sure you’ve got it correct. In this example we’ve got a relatively small diameter member so we’ll set it’s diameter as 0.21 meters / 21 centimeters.

It’s important to set the correct diameter or a reasonably close approximation of the diameter as this sets the area in which the software will look for a return which would suggest the member is flooded or dry. Next is to set up the transmit power and this is just the the amplitude of the transmitted pulse from the ISA500 probe. This is quite a small member diameter we’re going to drop that transmit power down to 20 percent.

Next you can set the speed of sound. By default this is the speed of sound in water. If you suspect the member under test is going to be filled with something else, such as an hydrocarbon which may have a different speed of sound you can enter in the expected speed of sound there.

You can then set up the member angle. You can set up the length of the member and you can also set up the end depth of the member so you get a visual representation of the member under test.

At this point we’ve set up the member, it’s all correct, it’s good to go. We can go ahead and place the ISA500 probe up against the member itself. When you do this, you want to make sure the probe is touching the member and you want to make sure that any spot cleaning has been carried out beforehand so the member surface is clean and you get a good contact with the probe. If we move the probe into position and click ‘Ping’.

In this example we’ve got a flooded member; I’ve clicked ‘Ping’, the sound has gone from the ISA500 probe into the member, it’s hit the back wall and it’s been reflected back again and detected by the ISA500. We can see the returning echo there, shown on screen. We can see the software is basically highlighting it’s a flooded member.

Add Readings

I’ll return it 0.23 meters and at this point if we’re happy with that reading we can click ‘Add Reading’ so it’ll save the reading. At this point we can say how far along the member it was. We can tell the position that we took that reading at so it could be 0 to 360 degrees around the pipe. Let’s say it was at 45 degrees.

We can then move the probe along to another part of the pipe and take another reading. We still get a flooded example, we can add this reading here. Say this is at two meters along the pipe, again 45 degrees. You can basically work your way along the the member, taking as many readings as you require.

If we move the probe to a section of the pipe where it’s not flooded, where it’s dry. We click ‘Ping’ now, we get no return coming back to the probe and the software is estimating that this is a dry section, it’s not heard any return back so it’s dry. At this point we can click ‘Add Reading’. State where along the pipe it was and we can see that being added to the pipe or the member mimic there. You can see we’ve got a couple of flooded readings and we’ve got one dry reading at the top.

Complete ISFMD test

Once you’ve conducted all the tests you’ll want to conduct on the member, you can click the ‘Test Complete’ button and that just marks it as complete there and also marks as complete in the members list. You can also add in any notes. These notes will just be stored in the final report so if there’s any observations or anything you want to note for anyone else to know, it’s a useful place to note them.

We can then go and add another member and we can set up that member’s name and we can set the diameter of that member along with the transmit power required etc. Then we can go through the tests again, add all the readings want to read and then complete the member. You can keep adding members manually, one at a time, if you want and just do that as you go.

Preconfigure Members

The other option is, prior to actually commencing an offshore project, you can add in a whole lot of members and you can pre-configure every single member and if you click this ‘save button’ on the left hand side of the screen it’ll basically save that list of members, all their diameters, transmit powers, their names etc. So you’ve got a fully populated list and once you get offshore you can just go and load the member list back in.

If I go and load a member list in just now, one that I created earlier, it goes to desktop, remember list so it’s loaded in a list of about six members that I’ve pre-configured there. It’s got the member names and you can skip through them and you can see the settings change for each one. That’s just a very quick way to pre-configure everything so once you actually get to the project you can quickly just work through members one by one and you’re not having to set up each one individually as you go.

ISFMD Reports

Once you’ve run through all your members and you’re happy with all your readings, they’re all complete, you can click the ‘report button’ here and clicking the report button will save all readings to an html file which you can then open and view in any browser.

To give you an example, there’s a test here which I did earlier. If I open the html file you can see the report, the date and then it’ll basically list all the members you’ve tested along with the member configuration and any readings that were there when the member was tested.

That’s the ISFMD application in seaView Software V3, if you have any questions regarding this please do not hesitate to contact us at support@impactsubsea.co.uk

Take a look at the ISFMD Product Page: ISFMD Flooded Member Detection

Watch seaView Software overviews on our other sensors: YouTube playlist

In our latest podcast, 🎧 Alana & Andrew break down the key benefits:

✱ Real-time Visualization: The app features a live, 3D model of the ISFMD probe, showing the operator exactly how the probe is being held.

✱ Instant Fill Status: Get an immediate estimate of a member’s fill status, whether it’s dry, part-filled or flooded.

✱ Streamlined Workflow: You can pre-configure an entire list of members with all their settings before an offshore project, allowing you to quickly work through them one by one, once on site.

✱ Comprehensive Reporting: Once all your tests are complete, the app automatically generates an HTML report with all the tested members, their configurations and a log of all readings.

Transcript – Conduct Flooded Member Detection

Welcome to the deep dive. Today we’re looking at something you can’t see. Deep underwater flooded members in subsea structures.

And these aren’t just small issues. We’re talking about potential structural problems that could compromise, you know, an entire rig or platform. Absolutely critical.

So our mission today is to explore the tech designed to find these hidden floods. The Impact Subsea Flooded Member Detection System, the ISFMD. Right. specifically how their seaView V3 software makes it work. It’s pretty neat how they use sound. Sound waves giving us eyes underwater.

Let’s dive in. Okay, so let’s start with the basics. You’re offshore, maybe on a vessel needing to inspect this huge underwater structure. How does this software seaView V3 make that less, well, less complicated? Well, the setup is actually designed to be really smooth. You install the software maybe from a download, maybe a USB stick. Okay.

And you get the screen. It’s quite clean. Apps on the left, sensors it finds in the middle, comm ports on the right and finding the sensors. Is that manual? No, that’s the clever bit. The first time you run it, seaView, it automatically scans every communication port on the computer, every single one. Yep. And it tries all the known baud rates, the data speeds. So, if you’ve plugged in something like their ISA500 FMD Probe, boom! it just finds it.

You pop in a one-time license file and the specific ISFMD application is just ready to go. But for the user, that means less time pulling their hair out trying to get things connected. Exactly. Less troubleshooting, more time actually doing the inspection. Offshore that time is incredibly valuable. Makes sense. That auto detect sounds like a huge relief.

But all right, the core function detecting the flood itself. How does it see inside a steel member deep underwater? Yeah, that’s where the acoustics come in. So on the main screen of the application, you actually see a live 3D model of the probe, the ISA500, like a little digital twin pretty much. It mirrors exactly how the ROV or the diver is holding and moving it. And visually you see the probe graphic pushed up against the member you’re testing. And there’s this green acoustic beam shown going into the member that represents the sound pulse it sends when you hit ping. Right. The sound wave precisely.

Now, a really crucial step for the operator is entering the member’s diameter correctly. Let’s say it’s 0.21 meters, 21 centimeters. Why is that so important? Because that tells the software where to listen for the return echo. It shows up as a blue box on the graphic. It defines the expected path length. Gotcha. So, it knows the distance to the back wall.

Exactly. If the sound pulse goes through, hits that back wall, and reflects back to the probe within that expected time or distance, then there’s water inside. Bingo. Yeah. The software flags it as flooded. If there’s no significant return echo detected in that window, it assumes it’s full of air or gas and marks it dry.

Can you adjust things like if the signal is weak? Oh, yeah. You can tweak the transmit power. And interestingly, if you think it might be filled with something else, like oil or glycol, you can actually input the specific speed of sound for that substance to fine-tune the detection. That’s quite precise.

So, how critical is getting that acoustic measurement right? What are the real stakes if you get it wrong? Oh, it’s absolutely paramount. I mean, think about it. If you wrongly identify a member as flooded, you might trigger really expensive, unnecessary repairs, right? Wasted resources. But potentially worse, if you miss a genuinely flooded member, well, that compromises the structures integrity. It could eventually lead to a failure, which is, you know, potentially catastrophic for the asset. and safety.

So, this isn’t just about convenience. It’s fundamental to making safe, informed decisions about these huge expensive structures. Definitely, you’re replacing guesswork or assumptions with actual verifiable data. That’s indispensable for maintenance planning, risk assessment, and just ensuring the thing stays standing safely.

Okay, so we have the detection, but inspecting a whole platform involves checking potentially hundreds of members. How does this system handle that scale efficiently? It can’t just be pinging one member at a time, setting it up from scratch each time. Surely, no, absolutely not.

The workflow is built into it. So, you can define individual test members in the software. Give each one a name or ID. Okay. You set its parameters, diameter, maybe adjust the transmit power needed. You can even put in its angle length and depth just for a better visual representation on screen.

And then you take the reading. Yeah. You make sure the probe has good contact. Sometimes the ROV needs to do a little spot cleaning first. Then you hit ping, get the result. Then you click add reading. And that logs everything. It logs the flooded or dry status, but also where on the member you took the reading. You can specify, say, two meters along the member at the 45° position around its circumference. Really precise documentation. That level of detail must be vital. It is.

But the real time saver for big projects is the pre-configuration. Before the vessel even leaves the harbor, you can create a whole list of all the members you plan to inspect. Ah, so you upload a plan essentially. Yeah, exactly. Add all the members, their names, diameters, locations, everything. Save that configuration file.

Once you’re offshore, you just load that file. All the members are there ready to be tested. That must save a massive amount of time compared to setting up each one individually out at sea. Huge amounts. Vessel time is incredibly expensive. So streamlining that data entry and setup is a major win.

Then once all the tests are done, there’s a report. Yep. You click generate report and it creates this comprehensive HTML file. Lists every single member tested, all its configuration settings and every single reading taken, including the location data. So full traceability, complete traceability makes auditing, reporting back to clients and long-term monitoring much, much simpler.

It really sounds like a powerful system. taking something complex like acoustic inspection and making it well manageable and visual. From the smart setup to the 3D guidance, the precise detection and then that comprehensive report. It’s quite the aha moment for underwater integrity checks. It really is. It elegantly solves a hidden problem.

And you know, as you think about this technology, using sound to find hidden water deep beneath the waves, it does make you wonder, doesn’t it? How so? Well, what other invisible challenges are out there in all sorts of fields that we could potentially solve just by applying existing technologies like acoustics in new and clever ways?

See our case studies on how the Flooded Member Detection System is being used in real-world projects.