Cable survey system cuts costs
Smartrak 9, an inspection system that intuitively senses the presence of subsea cables and pipelines using a smaller than usual ROV is set to significantly reduce costs of survey work in the burgeoning marine energy industry, says Submagnetix, the survey division of Innovatum.
The Bury St Edmunds UK company, which recently completed an as-laid cable survey for Germany’s first offshore wind farm in the Baltic, claims that the system can cut costs of a conventional assembly of around £500,000 to just £150,000. Moreover, it adds, it is claimed to be the only system in the world capable of sensing cables either carrying or not carrying AC or DC currents. It can also sense steel pipelines.
The system is integrated within a compact Saab Seaeye Falcon ROV to form a miniature package assembly that can be rapidly mobilised and deployed from small vessels for surveys of all types of inshore and coastal subsea cables and pipelines. The ROV itself is characterised by low electrical and acoustic noise, allowing for optimum access of data via sensors which include a Tritech SeaKing profiler and a Micron-Nav USBL navigation transducer for underwater positioning.
