Data acquisition for shallow survey 2015 begins
Acquisition of common datasets by leading multibeam manufacturers has begun in Plymouth Sound and Wembury Bay in readiness for final comparison studies at the 7th International Conference on High-Resolution Shallow Water Surveys, in Plymouth from 14-18 September next year.
The event, which is expected to attract well over 200 delegates from government and commercial organisations around the world, is being jointly organised by the UK Hydrographic Office and the UK Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) partnered by Plymouth University as principal conference sponsor.
Six manufacturers are currently participating in acquisition of data at the two venues which have been specifically chosen for their good variety of depths, bottom types and subsea structures. In addition, a target detection test has also been set to ensure that fair comparisons can be made between the object detection capabilities of competing systems.
Industry participants are EdgeTech, Kongsberg GeoAcoustics, Kongsberg Maritime, R2Sonic, Teledyne Reson and WASSP. Each has been allocated a five-day period for own-system testing aboard either a Royal Navy vessel or Plymouth University’s Falcon Spirit. Supporters of the tests, which will also later cover remote sensing activities, include Applanix, Geo-Spatial Survey Solutions and Valeport.
By David Goodfellow
