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 signaling the ISS360 & ISS360HD imaging sonars also benefit from the Impact Subsea Signaling 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

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

Inversion Reset V3 – Transcript

Hi, I’m Ben Grant, Managing Director of Impact Subsea.

In this video, we’re going to show you how to set your Impact Subsea sensor to a known communications protocol and baud rate. In this example we’ll use the ISA500 altimeter as shown here, however the same process works for any Impact Subsea sensor.

To set your sensor to a known communications protocol, have the sensor on a bench with the connector pointing upwards.

Take your communications and power cable and connect it to the sensor. Once connected and once power is supplied, you want to rotate the sensor three times within the first 10 seconds. That will set the sensor to RS232 9600 baud.

If you have a sensor with V3 firmware or newer if you continue the rotations beyond three and go up to a minimum of six rotations, the sensor will be set to RS485 9600 baud at which point you can connect through your serial interface into your computer and find the sensor within the seaView software.

Once you’re into the seaView software you can configure the sensor to have any permanent communications protocol and baud rate that you require.

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Transcript

How often do I send back for sonar servicing?

One of the other questions we get is with regards to maintenance and how often do you have to send back for sonar servicing?

With all our products we tried to make them so the maintenance interval is very long and so they’re designed to run for as long as it’s practically possible in the field without being serviced.

All the sonars have a titanium body so you don’t have any corrosion issues, this will last a good long time, you’ve got a stainless steel connector and something else that sometimes wears out on scanning sonars is the slip rings.

Usually you have a transducer in the boot end which rotates round and it’s connected back to the electronics using slip rings and brush contacts on the slip rings and over time it’s a physical contact it’ll suffer from wear and tear and you have to send it back to get it swapped out.

The ISS360 range we did away with slip rings so the transducer is fully inductively coupled to the electronics so as the transducer rotates there’s no physically touching components.

There’s nothing to wear out, there’s nothing to require it to come back periodically and so although it’s got a moving transducer in there. a moving component, nothing’s touching so it’s a very long life.

The main thing you maybe want to send back for a simple sonar servicing, just a health check and also it allows us to change out the rubber components to change o rings and keep all that in good condition.

This is just one question we hope has been answered for you, if you have more please watch the full film here.

If you have any questions regarding this please do not hesitate to contact us at support@impactsubsea.co.uk

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

Watch our other sonar films: YouTube playlist

Transcript

Another question we get asked is which sonar is right for my application?

That really comes down to exactly what you require? If you need a sonar which is as compact as is practically possible, the ISS360 is ideal and you get a really compact sonar, we believe it’s the smallest imaging sonar in the world.

It’s highly compact, it’s pretty lightweight and it’s quite low power consumption so it’s ideal for a lot of miniature ROVs and a lot of small or even larger AUVs as well where power is a consideration.

If on the other hand you can accommodate a slightly larger sonar such as maybe on work class ROV or mid-range ROV the ISS360HD is ideal. This way you benefit from more than twice the angular resolution and you get slightly more range as well.

Which sonar really comes down to what you can fit on your vehicle and what kind of performance levels you require from the sonar.

This is just one question we hope has been answered for you, if you have more please watch the full film here.

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ROV / AUV ISS360 Sonar – Answering your questions – How quickly does the sonar scan?

Transcript

How quickly does the sonar scan?

Another question which often comes up, particularly when discussing scanning sonars is; how quickly does the sonar scan? If you look at the YouTube page or the ISS360 page of our website there’s a lot of example videos which show you the scanning speed at different ranges and different resolutions.

I can also show you the scanning speed just now. Behind us we’ve got an ISS360 sonar in our tank and it’s currently scanning a two meter range, at its lowest resolution setting. What you’re seeing there is the fastest rate which the sonar will scan. That particular sonar is running over Ethernet Communications back to the computer.

I can adjust the scan speed as there’s a little slider bar at the bottom of the screen so you can adjust from the high speed to high resolution and as it’s set to high speed just now, move it up to a higher resolution and higher quality you’ll see the sonar slows down.

As we start to get a much higher resolution, more accurate image of the tank.

It’s really designed so if you’re using the sonar for obstacle avoidance you can set it to the fast speed, you just need to know, is there something in front of me? or can I locate a target around you scans round really fast, updates fast, then we get closer to the target you can slow it down a little bit, move it more into the quality setting so you get a higher resolution image and then you can use that for target identification.

You also don’t need to do a full 360 degree scan, you’ve got it there if you need it so if you’ve got it on the top of your vehicle and you want to see everything that’s around you and kind of position yourself relative to another structure or something else subsea, it’s ideal for that.

Forward-looking obstacle avoidance

If you just want it for forward-looking obstacle avoidance you can set up a window, I’ll show you that just now. Let’s turn off full 360 and just do a sector scan. Set it to a 90 degree sector scan just now. We’ll just zoom in so we’ve got that on screen. So there’s your 90 degree sector and it’s just scanning back and forth, giving you an update right there.

You can also set it to use flyback so if we set it to use flyback, it’ll scan one way then zoom back to the other side, scan one way, zoom back to the other side and just gives you a faster update rate. So using flyback and if we drop it to the faster speed setting you get really fast updating scanning sonar it’s ideal for forward-looking navigation.

This is just one question we hope has been answered for you about the ISS360 sonar if you have more please watch the full film here.

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ROV / AUV ISS360 Sonar – Answering your questions – How can I interface to my sonar?

How can I interface to my sonar? – Transcript

One of the other questions we get asked is “How can I interface to my sonar – ISS360?”

You’ve got a number of options as standard in all the ISS360 sonars, they all come with serial communications so they come with RS232 Communications and RS485 Communications.

RS232 is ideal if you’re running it over a short cable length or up through a fiber mux, up to the surface from your ROV.

Then you’ve got RS485 Communications which is ideal if you just have a screened twisted pair and you can run 45 comms anywhere up to 1.2 kilometers worth of cable. We’ve tested these ourselves up to a kilometer with the cable so it’s quite a practical way to get comms.

The other way you can get comms is through Ethernet. Ethernet is from a performance perspective, the most ideal communications protocol as it has plenty of bandwidth.

The sonar can scan really quickly and there’s no waiting for the data to be sent from the surface. Everything just gets sent in real time so if you have Ethernet capability available it’s always ideal to use that. It should be the fastest scanning sonar possible.

This is just one question we hope has been answered for you, if you have more please watch the full film here.

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ROV / AUV Sonar – ISS360 Live Question & Answer Session.

Transcript

Hello welcome to this week’s live session from Impact Subsea on YouTube. This week I’ll be answering any questions you have on Impact Subsea sensors and systems. I’m Ben Grant, Managing Director at Impact Subsea.

Now for the last few weeks we’ve covered a number of different sensors; we’ve looked at our ISA500 Altimeter Range, our ISM3D Heading, Pitch and Role Sensor Range and our ISD4000 Depth and Temperature Sensor.

ROV / AUV Sonar ISS360 Introduction

This week I thought we’d start things off by having a quick discussion over ROV / AUV Sonars – ISS360. So we offer two ISS360 sonars, we have the original ISS360 which is an extremely compact Imaging Sonar. It’s a mechanically scanning sonar. It gives you a full 360 degree vision around about you. Up to a distance of 90 meters away and it has a very high range resolution of 2.5 millimeters so it gives you really clear imagery.

It’s very compact, you’ve got a titanium housing with a subconn connector and a standard eight pin subconn that we use in all of our sensor solutions. The same wiring as every other sensor we do as well. Inside the boot end here, you’ve got an oil filled section with a transducer in there which rotates round much like a miniature radar but for underwater use. Now, you can see the type of imagery which is produced by the sonar behind me.

You’ve got, one of our sonars have been placed into our test tank here which is a circular, two meter diameter test tank. On the screen you get the kind of top down view of the test tank and you can see the sonar scanning around and that’s shown by the red line rotating around the screen there.

That’s the ROV / AUV Sonar – ISS360 and it’s ideal for ROV and AUV operations, for obstacle avoidance, general awareness of where your vehicle is placed.

ROV / AUV Sonar ISS360HD Introduction

We also offer the ISS360HD which is a bigger version of the sonar and effectively gives you a much higher angular resolution. This is ideal for very high resolution imagery and slightly longer range performance.

The ISS360HD which range out to 100 meters and it’s got a one degree beam width. it’s a very fine slice as opposed to the 2.3 degrees of the ISS360. In terms of physical build, the body is the same as ISS360, as is the connector, as is the pin out.

The main change with the ISS360HD is the boot end. To get the higher angular resolution we need a much wider transducer in there so we’ve got a very wide composite transducer and then the boots extended out, oil filled, there’s a larger diaphragm on top there just to compensate the oil in the boot. As the sonar goes deeper in the water.

The ISS360HD is depth rated down to 6,000 meters ISS360 is depth rated down to 4,000 meters as standard but we do also do a 6,000 meter rated option.

What is the vertical angle of the ISS360 and ISS360HD?

We get asked lots of different questions about sonars and some of the common ones we get asked about is the vertical beam angle between the sonars. With the ISS360 standard sonar it’s got a 2.2 degree beam by 23 degrees like that and that’s ideal for general obstacle avoidance and navigation purposes. The ISS360HD has a 30 degree beam that way and a one degree beam that way. It’s more than twice the angular resolution for ISS360.

How fast does the ISS360 scan?

Another question which often comes up, particularly when discussing scanning sonars is; how quickly does the sonar scan? If you look at the YouTube page or the ISS360 page of our website there’s a lot of example videos which show you the scanning speed at different ranges and different resolutions.

I can also show you the scanning speed just now. Behind us we’ve got an ISS360 sonar in our tank and it’s currently scanning a two meter range, at its lowest resolution setting. What you’re seeing there is the fastest rate which the sonar will scan. That particular sonar is running over Ethernet Communications back to the computer.

I can adjust the scan speed as there’s a little slider bar at the bottom of the screen so you can adjust from the high speed to high resolution and as it’s set to high speed just now, move it up to a higher resolution and higher quality you’ll see the sonar slows down.

As we start to get a much higher resolution, more accurate image of the tank.

Can it be used for obstacle avoidance or navigation?

It’s really designed so if you’re using the sonar for obstacle avoidance you can set it to the fast speed, you just need to know, is there something in front of me? or can I locate a target around you scans round really fast, updates fast, then we get closer to the target you can slow it down a little bit, move it more into the quality setting so you get a higher resolution image and then you can use that for target identification.

You also don’t need to do a full 360 degree scan, you’ve got it there if you need it so if you’ve got it on the top of your vehicle and you want to see everything that’s around you and kind of position yourself relative to another structure or something else subsea, it’s ideal for that. If you just want it for forward-looking obstacle avoidance you can set up a window, I’ll show you that just now.

Let’s turn off full 360 and just do a sector scan. Set it to a 90 degree sector scan just now. We’ll just zoom in so we’ve got that on screen. So there’s your 90 degree sector and it’s just scanning back and forth, giving you an update right there.

You can also set it to use flyback so if we set it to use flyback, it’ll scan one way then zoom back to the other side, scan one way, zoom back to the other side and just gives you a faster update rate. So using flyback and if we drop it to the faster speed setting you get really fast updating scanning sonar it’s ideal for forward-looking navigation.

Which ROV / AUV Sonar – ISS360 is the right one for my application?

Another question we sometimes get asked is which ISS360 sonar is right for my application? That really comes down to exactly what you require. If you need a sonar which is as compact as is practically possible then the ISS360 is ideal and you get a really compact sonar, we believe it’s the smallest imaging sonar in the world. It’s highly compact, it’s pretty lightweight and it’s quite a little power consumption so it’s ideal for a lot of miniature ROVs and a lot of small or even larger AUVS as well, where power is a consideration.

If on the other hand you can accommodate a slightly larger sonar such as maybe on a work class ROV or mid-range ROV then the ROV / AUV Sonar ISS360HD is ideal. This way you benefit from more than twice the angular resolution and you get slightly more range as well as it really comes down to what you can fit on your vehicle and what kind of performance levels you require from the sonar.

How can I interface to the ROV / AUV Sonar ISS360?

One of the other questions we get asked is how can I interface to my ROV / AUV Sonar ISS360? We’ve got a number of options as standard in all ISS360 sonars they all come with serial communications so they come with RS232 Communications and RS485 Communications. RS232 is ideal if you’re running it over a short cable length or up through a fiber mux, up to the surface from your ROV.

Then you’ve got RS485 Communications which is ideal if you just have a screened twisted pair and you can run RS485 comms anywhere up to 1.2 kilometers worth of cable. We’ve tested these ourselves up to a kilometer with the cable so it’s quite a practical way to get comms.

The other way you can get comms is through Ethernet. Ethernet is, from a performance perspective, the most ideal communications protocol as it has plenty of bandwidth so the sonar can scan really quickly and there’s no waiting for the data to be sent from the surface. Everything just gets sent in real time so if you have Ethernet capability available it’s always ideal to use that. It should be the fastest scanning sonar possible.

Do I need to return for regular maintenance?

One of the other questions we get is with regards to maintenance and how often do you have to send this back for servicing?

With all our products we try to make them so the maintenance interval is very long and so they’re designed to run for as long as it’s practically possible in the field without being serviced. All the sonars have a titanium body so you don’t have any corrosion issues. It should last a good long time.

They’ve got a stainless steel connector. Something else that sometimes wears out on scanning sonars is the slip rings. Usually you have a transducer in the boot end which rotates round and it’s connected back to the electronics using slip rings and brush contacts on the slip rings. Over time as it’s a physical contact, it will suffer from wear and tear and you have to send it back to get it swapped out.

With the ROV / AUV Sonar ISS360 Series we did away with slip rings so the transducer is fully inductively coupled to the electronics. As the transducer rotates there’s no physically touching components, there’s nothing to wear out, there’s nothing to require to come back periodically.

Although it’s got a moving transducer in there, moving component, nothing’s touching so it’s a very long life. The main thing you maybe want to send it back for, for service is just a health check and also it allows us to change out the rubber components, to change O-rings and keep all that in good condition.

What software do I use?

I’ve got a question in just now which is: What software are we using? We provide the seaView Software which you can download from our seaView Software page. You can download it free of charge.

The seaView Software runs all our sensors, it runs the altimeters, depth sensors, heading sensors and of course the sonars. In terms of the software, seaView will provide full functionality of the sonar so you can view data, you can log data, you can play back data, you can configure your sonar, it makes it really easy to use.

If you have an application where you don’t want to use our software or you want to directly interface it to an AUV control system or you want to write your own software, we do also provide a software development kit which will provide all functionalities you can get in seaView, provides that direct interface to the sonar and that’s freely available for all of our products.

So that’s a kind of overview of some of the most common questions we get on our ROV / AUV Sonar Series. If you want to learn more about the ISS360 we’ve got a Sonar page on our website which has the the datasheets, manuals, 3D models, lots of videos showing it running, lots of images in the gallery showing exactly what kind of data you can get from the sonar and we also have a few articles on our website which go into detail about the technical performance of the ISS360 Sonar and how we achieve the image quality and the range capabilities which we have.

That’s all from me today, any questions please drop us a line at support@impactsubsea.co.uk and I look forward to seeing you again next week.

Bye for now.

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