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For every deployment you need to load your RT6, this knowledge base article will discuss how to do this with a Sonardyne iWand.

To load your RT6-3000 or RT 6-6000 setup your iWand as below and then follow the steps as outlined:



iWand procedure

1. On the iWand main menu click Quick Check

2. To begin the sequence press ENT (To discover the RT6)

3. The discovery process will then find the RT6 and interrogate it for information.
4. You can then select TEST STD Release to open and close the release.

5. The iWand Test STD Release screen will display the current state of the release mechanism.

6. To open the release mechanism select Open Release and then press ENT. Active will be displayed while release mechanism is operating. Always ensure you keep hands away from the release mechanism while operating.

7. Open is displayed when the release mechanism has opened.

With the release hook now open the following procedure can be followed, it is recommended to use Sonardyne supplied shackles and the assistance of a second person may be useful.

1. Insert the shackle into the hook opening.

2. Close the mechanism using a Sonardyne Loading Tool (640-6514) which is supplied with every RT 6-3000 and RT 6-6000.

3. Lift the end of the loading tool to swing the hook fully and insert the attached locking pin.

4. Follow the iWand quick check to open the Test STD Release screen on the iWAND.
5. The iWand should now display the current release state of the mechanism.

6. To close the mechanism select Close Release and then press ENT, Active will display while the release mechanism is operating.

7. Closed will display when the release mechanism has closed.

8. Remove pin before deployment.

Note this procedure gives an overview of the methodology for loading an RT 6-3000 and RT 6-6000, consult the manual for safety warnings and a more in-depth procedure.

Any questions on loading an RT 6-3000 or RT6-6000 get in contact with our support team or request a manual.

We offer four different releases designed for different operational scenarios. From shallow to deep and light to heavy, this article highlights some of the deciding factors between the variants.

Working in coastal regions or with simple seabed frames?

The RT 6-1000 is the workhorse of shallow water releases. It has class leading depth, working load limit and battery life. If using HF, our LRT is an alternative option.

For 90% of shallow water use cases the RT 6-1000 is perfect because of it’s reliability, endurance and lifting capacity.

Did you know you can also release the RT 6-1000 with our medium frequency Ranger 2 USBL systems?  If you don’t have Ranger 2, it can be released via an app or via our iWand.

What if I don’t want to leave any seabed infrastructure in place?

A key feature of the RT 6-1000 is its optional rope canister. Instead of the traditional method of weighing seabed infrastructure down and releasing a buoyant frame to the surface, the rope canister means you can release a buoy and pull line to the surface for retrieval. This enables you to haul up to 250kg of equipment back to the surface without needing to suspend a large load on the release nut.

The RT 6-1000 covers the majority of use cases for the coastal zone. The full RT6 range can also be used in shallow water for different working loads.

Working off the continental shelf or nearer to shore with heavier infrastructure?

Firstly, don’t forget the 1000m depth rating of the RT 6-1000 will allow you to work well off the continental shelf.

However, most users of the RT 6 range in deep water will be looking at our RT 6-3000 and RT 6-6000. Form factor wise, these are identical which means that your frames can support both of these releases. The only functional difference here being the fact that they come in medium and low-medium frequency versions. But what does this mean practically?

Due to spreading and absorption, acoustic communications propagate more and are more reliable at lower frequencies, so we have tuned our RT 6-6000 and RT 6-HD in the 14-19 kHz range to ensure you will always be able to talk to these devices at depth. As reliability and working load are key, RT 6-3000 works down to 3000 m reliably and at slant ranges of up to 4,500m.

Working at full ocean depth or with large seabed infrastructure?

Check out our RT 6-HD, with its super duplex stainless steel housing, WLL of 2.5 tons and a 3 year battery it’s a workhorse for deepsea moorings.

Any questions? See our YouTube videos or contact support. Also, have a look at our other knowledge base articles which describe the working load limits of our RT 6 range.

As mentioned above, you can release an LMF release with an MF Ranger 2 system, read the article about this here.

So, you want to deploy your assets to the seabed, but don’t want to leave anything on the seabed post deployment? Then you need to make a rope canister or utilise Sonardyne’s rope canister. This article will explain what a rope canister is and why you might use one.

What’s the problem?

Typically when deploying assets to the seabed there are four main ways of recovering them:

  1. Weighing the assets down with a weight greater than their buoyancy, then using an acoustic release to release the buoyant assets to the surface whilst leaving environmentally friendly ballast on the seabed.
  2. Weighing the assets down with the minimum weight required to ensure no movement of the assets, and then using an acoustic release to release a pop up buoy to the surface which allows the weighed down seabed asset to be retrieved by hauling the rope.
  3. Deploying the asset to the seabed and recovering with an ROV or Divers.
  4. Deploying the asset to the seabed and having it permanently buoyed to the surface.

All of these above methods have benefits and negatives, but option number 2 has the least seabed footprint and few risks associated with it because:

As such lots of users will use rope canisters and pop up buoys, a typical configuration for deploying an ADCP is shown below.

Credit University of Hawaii

So I want to use a rope canister/pop up buoy, what options do I have?

  1. Make your own pop up buoy system.
  2. Use a Sonardyne provided pop up buoy/rope canister system.

Tell me more about Sonardyne and rope canisters with the RT 6-1000
Sonardyne’s rope canisters are designed to attach to the RT 6-1000 and come with configurable rope lengths and two 400m depth rated 3.5kg upthrust buoys.

What does a rope canister look like?

What’s in a rope canister kit?
A typical 70m kit looks as below, with two buoys, rope canister and rope.

What variants of rope canister kits are there?
Rope canister kits are available in 70m, 120m and 160m variants with different strain ratings depending on the rope thickness.

Why not check out our other article about our two recommended ways of using a rope canister? Or alternatively contact our support or sales teams to request a manual.

So you want to use the RT 6-1000 and use it’s NFC ability to configure, deploy, recover and localise your RT 6-1000, but where is the app? It can also be used for configuring other compatible Sonardyne NFC-enabled beacons. Click on the link or scan the QR code below to find the app.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sonardyne.rt1000&gl=UK&utm_source=emea_OO

So, you have a .swu file and you want to update your Syrinx DVL? Here’s how

Ensure that the unit is powered and the Ethernet cable is attached to the programing PC.

For this example, we will be assuming the Syrinx DVL IP address is configured as default (192.168.179.200) if your Syrinx is configured to a different IP address please use this instead.

Run a web browser (Chrome or Internet Explorer/Edge are recommended). And type: 192.168.179.200/support (remember to substitute your own IP address if your unit is configured differently) into the address bar and hit enter. The following page should load, if the unit has only just been powered on you may have to wait a while and refresh the page to allow the unit to properly boot (around 15 seconds).

Uploading and installing the .swu

Click the Update Software button and the following pop-up will show.

Click browse and navigate to the .swu update that you wish to install, here we are using Syrinx_Rel2_RevI.swu

Select it, and click ‘open’

Then click “Upload File” and wait for the button to go from ‘Uploading’ to “Upload Complete”.

Once this is done, click the validate button.

On successful validation the Install button will appear, click this, and wait for the unit to complete the install. Once the install has completed the unit will restart itself.

Wait for 20 seconds to allow the unit to restart and then click the ok button. The webserver will refresh and reload the support page.

You have now successfully updated your Syrinx DVL. If you wish you can check the installed firmware versions on the home page of the web interface.

Contact [email protected] for more information.

Syrinx DVL has an easy to access web page as well as FTP server for file downloads and management, here’s how to access them.

Download an Individual File

To download an individual file via the built in webserver:

  1. Navigate to the Syrinx DVL webserver by typing in the IP address (default 192.168.179.200) in your web browser and click the “Log Files” tab.
  2. Click the file’s corresponding icon, as highlighted below, browse to a location and then click OK to save the file.

Download Multiple Files using an FTP Client

To download multiple log files via ftp, click Access FTP on the DVL File Manager or use your preferred FTP client to access the server with the following details:
Server address: The IP address of the DVL (default 192.168.179.200)
Username: guest
Password: guest

Download Multiple Files using Windows Explorer as an FTP Client

The following example uses Windows Explorer as an FTP client (it is assumed the DVL’s IP address has
not been changed from the default 192.168.179.200.

  1. Open a Windows Explorer window, enter ftp://192.168.179.200/ and then press Enter.
    1. If an Internet Explorer window opens instead of the FTP Log On window, change the Internet Options settings; follow step 2, otherwise skip to step 4.
  2. Click the settings icon on the Internet Explorer browser and select Internet Options.
  3.  On the Advanced tab, select Enable FTP folder view (outside of Internet Explorer) and then click OK.
  4. Enter the FTP user credentials
    1. User name : guest
    2. Password: guest
  5.  Click Log On
  6.  A directory listing of the DVL Logs will be displayed in Windows Explorer
  7. Select and copy the required files to the new location

Delete an Individual File

  1. Click the file’s corresponding icon
    1. If the file is currently in use the contents will be cleared but the file will not be deleted
    2. Be aware that once the icon is clicked the file will be deleted without any further confirmation
      required.

Delete All Files

  1. Click Delete All
  2. Click Yes to confirm removal of all files
  3. The Syrinx system will confirm that the files are being removed

Contact [email protected] for more information.

When deploying the Syrinx DVL, the following guidelines should be used to determine where and how the Doppler velocity log (DVL) is mounted for optimal performance.

1. The Syrinx DVL requires clear line of sight below the vehicle on which it is mounted (for conventional downward-facing mounting arrangements).
This includes 15° clearance around the direction that is orthogonal to the transducer face. The transducer face is orientated at 30° azimuth from the vertical (downward) direction, with each beam at a 90° offset in yaw respective to one another, and all beams rotated 45 degrees in yaw from the forward mark.

2. The Syrinx DVL should be mounted at the greatest distance possible away from the seabed (taking into account Step 1 above).

a. This is to offset the minimum altitude of operation of the Syrinx DVL of <0.4 m.

b. If the Syrinx DVL can be mounted 0.4 m or greater above the bottom of the vehicle with clear line of sight, bottom lock should rarely be lost even if the vehicle settles on the seabed.

3. For optimal tracking performance, care should be taken not to mount the Syrinx DVL above thruster outtakes or other sources of turbulent water.

4. The Syrinx DVL is deployed with the interface plate and isolation plate attached to electrically isolate the device from the vehicle, however the electrical isolation is not a necessity.

5. The orientation of the Syrinx DVL is also important and can affect performance in certain scenarios.

a. For most operations, the desired orientation is to line up the Syrinx DVL forward mark (label or machined grove on housing) with the forward heading of the vehicle.

b. For following pipelines where altitude measurements above the pipe are very important, the Syrinx DVL can be rotated by 45 degrees so that beams then face forward, aft, port and starboard rather than inter-cardinal directions. This will result in the forward and aft beams being directed onto the pipe surface.

c. If the Syrinx DVL is mounted at a known angle offset, ensure that the correct offsets are applied for yaw, pitch and roll either in the Syrinx DVL or the navigation software to ensure velocities are used in the correct direction.

Contact [email protected] for more information.

What output messages can you get from a Syrinx DVL?

Soanrdyne Messages:

Third Party Messages:

We provide navigation solutions based on both ring laser gyros (RLG) and fibre optic gyros (FOG). Why not focus on a single technology?

The key components of any inertial navigation solution (INS) are the gyroscopes. The gyroscopes measure rotation and their performance can be directly linked to the overall system performance.
There are different technologies that can be used to create optical gyroscopes and while they all take advantage of the same phenomenon, Sagnac effect, the gyroscope characteristic is very different and lends itself to different applications.

While the RLG is insensitive to e.g. temperature changes and vibrations they have the capability to provide very high performance at a small form factor.

The FOG in contrast is sensitive to temperature and vibrations but can be more cost effective.

Due to the inherently different characteristics, we used RLGs in our highest performing navigation solutions, such as SPRINT-Nav and SPRINT, which is aimed at survey applications and autonomous navigation.

FOGs are used in the cost-effective SPRINT-Nav Mini which is aimed at smaller vehicles for inspection work or mine countermeasure (MCM) applications.

If you’ve seen both ‘Vehicle and IMU Frame of Reference’ mentioned, but are uncertain what this refers to, carry on reading.

When discussing coordinates and refence frames Sonardyne always applies the ‘right-hand rule’, which can be seen below.

The ‘right-hand rule’ can be explained by holding one’s right-hand hand outward, palm up, with the fingers curled, and the thumb outstretched. If the curl of the fingers represents a movement from the first or x-axis to the second or y-axis, then the third or z-axis can point along either thumb

Applying this to a common Forward, Starboard, Down reference frame can be seen below:

Several reference frames are used within inertial navigation.

Vehicle Frame
Axes are along the vehicle axis, typically Forward, Starboard and Down. The vehicle frame is typically used for navigation outputs, e.g. roll, pitch, and heading, and for defining various sensor lever arms and mounting angles.

Navigation Frame
Frame used for the inertial navigation computation of position and velocity, most often local level, e.g. North, East and Down.

IMU Frame
Axes are along the inertial sensor axes as typically marked on the IMU/INS housing. IMU frame is primarily used for internal INS computations.