Sonardyne
Support Centre
eShop

Origin 65 uses parabolic reflectors to form acoustic beams. Is there any risk that the performance is degraded if sediment settles on the reflector surface?

How do the Origin 65 ADCP acoustics work?
Conventional low frequency ADCPs utilise large monolithic transducers to achieve beam widths of typically 4-5.5°. In contrast, Origin 65 ADCP acoustics use a ‘satellite dish’ design that involves a small transducer with a wide (38°) beam that’s bounced off a parabolic reflector. This process focusses the beamwidth to 3.8° and it is this narrower beam that is used to measure current profiles. The narrower beam width of Origin 65 provides an extra 1.2 dB of gain compared to equivalent conventional designs at the same frequency.

What are the risks associated with sediment deposits on the parabolic reflectors?
When Origin 65 is deployed to the seabed, over the course of a mission it is possible that a layer of sediment may gather on the upper reflector surface. This would affect conventional designs less because the front face of the transducer is more angled with respect to the vertical so it’s harder for sediment to accumulate. However, there are several reasons why sediment collection in the reflector is not likely to impact acoustic performance significantly.

First, the sediment loading would have to be substantial to affect the acoustic performance. A thin layer of sediment with substantial water loading would result in a slight increase in noise at worst, and the systematic contribution from sidelobe pickup (which is present in conventional transducer designs as well) is a far larger effect.

Second, the shape of the Origin 65 beams is mainly determined by the geometry of the reflector. To disrupt the acoustic performance, the collected sediment would have to form a layer dense enough, and with a large enough reflectivity, to reflect sound in a similar manner to steel. In addition, the layer would have to form a surface of different geometry to the reflector parabola, whereas uniform depositions of sediment would likely accumulate equally across the reflector surface. These disruptive requirements are unlikely to be met in most deep water environments.

Thirdly, the curvature of the reflectors is relatively shallow – a depth of around 3 cm over a diameter of 40 cm does not provide a large volume, and it would be easy for currents to push all but the largest, stickiest sediment out of the reflector, or at least rearrange the deposition uniformly across the surface.

It is of course still possible for biofouling to accumulate over the acoustic projectors and the reflector surfaces in the same way as for conventional transducers. Anti biofouling treatments can be applied to the projectors and reflectors to mitigate this effect. However, for many deep water sites even this may not be necessary as the colder temperatures and lack of nutrients and sunlight will hinder growth of biofouling. Therefore, it is unlikely that this effect will degrade the performance of Origin 65 even over multi year deployments.

 

Contact [email protected] for more information.

In short, yes – Origin ADCPs have an integrated acoustic modem as standard, enabling communication with and thus reconfiguration of your ADCP once deployed. All you need is your Origin ADCP with an accompanying topside modem, and a laptop to run the Origin Topside software.

Reasons and options available for reconfiguration of a seabed ADCP
Seabed mounted ADCPs have historically been deployed as standalone instruments, requiring pre-configuration of the instrument for deployment. However, there may be occasions where a user has mis-configured the ADCP or configured it less than optimally for their application. Without a communication link with the ADCP when it is in the water, there is then no means for reconfiguration without costly retrieval.
ADCPs are increasingly being deployed with an acoustic modem or in a cabled operation to enable remote communications, but there are cost and risk implications to these approaches.

What is the Sonardyne solution?
Origin ADCPs have an integrated acoustic modem to enable remote communications and thus reconfiguration once in the water.

Just install the Origin Topside software, connect your topside modem to your laptop, and wake up the ADCP. Now you can reconfigure your Origin ADCP, including amending settings such as geolocation, assumed salinity and speed of sound in water. Moreover, you can reconfigure the measurement schedule to cater for changing operational requirements, such as: If you decide you want to capture a different quantity of data; if a collaborator needs you to run a different schedule; or if captured data provokes an informed change in sampling schedule. Any of these actions could increase the value of your deployment.

If your Origin ADCP has Edge functionality you can also upload an Edge app acoustically during a deployment if you want to modify the optimised data produced by your device.

So, there are numerous ways by which your ADCP can be configured once in the water for you to get the best out of your Origin deployment.

For more information on the benefits of the Origin integrated acoustic modem, check out FAQ LINK (to be linked).

 

Contact [email protected] for more information.

To add further value to your ADCP data, external sensors can be integrated with Origin via RS232 and their data logged on the ADCP.

What is the benefit of supplementing ADCP data with data from external sensors?

ADCP data has a wide variety of applications, from Aquaculture, dredging and scour monitoring, to critical infrastructure maintenance, offshore renewable energy (ORE), and many more. Whilst ADCPs can tell you ‘which direction’, ‘how fast’, and ‘where’, they are less capable of saying ‘what’. Constraining the properties of suspended particles or ambient conditions normally requires deploying additional sensors in the same location as the ADCP. However, this raises the challenge of fusing the sensor and ADCP data in post‑processing once the device is recovered and the data downloaded.

What is the Origin solution?

To integrate external sensors, Origin ADCPs have a wet connector which allows power and communications to an external sensor. So if the sensor does not have its own battery, Origin can power it. This allows data from the sensor to be streamed into the ADCP when it is capturing data.

Most sensors with an RS232 interface are supported, and like the ADCP data, the sensor measurements are logged to the ADCP internal memory so that all measurements are in one place. Sensors typically used include:

From the diverse and non-exclusive list above, it is generally difficult to predict which sensor will be selected to operate alongside the ADCP. It is therefore challenging to fuse the ADCP data with the sensor data using standard firmware.
To mitigate this problem, Origin can pass external sensor packets to an installed Edge application. A decoder for the specific installed sensor can be integrated into the Edge app, thereby placing control of the data fusion in the hands of the user.

Data flow from an external sensor into Origin 600, with the data logged for redundancy, and automatically passed to an installed EDGE application for fusing with the ADCP data.

The code for interpreting the external sensor data is minimal as demonstrated below.

Interpreting external sensor data in an Edge application. A piece of Python code that is called whenever a new external sensor measurement is available. The code in this example simply echoes the measurement back to the user, but fusion with ADCP data would be straightforward to implement instead.

The sensor and ADCP data can be fused in whatever format desired by the user. Once this has occurred, the fused data can be exported topside via the acoustic modem for near real‑time analysis.

 

Contact [email protected] for more information.

For SPRINT-Nav Mini troubleshooting, refer to the Sprint-Nav Mini user manual.  If the troubleshooting information listed in the user manual has not resolved your issue, please provide the following information to Sonardyne Customer Support.

  1. Sprint-Nav Mini serial number.
  2. Sprint-Nav Mini firmware version.
  3. Detailed information of your issue including a timeline and any troubleshooting steps already completed.
  4. Log files when the issue was reported. Please use the Retrieving Data procedure listed in the Sprint-Nav Mini user manual.
  5. Configuration file. Please use the Configuration File Information procedure listed in the Sprint-Nav Mini user manual.

Contact [email protected] for more information.

This article describes the procedure for changing the address of a DART acoustically in air, using an iWand and Sonardyne 6G Terminal Lite software.

RS232 communication to a PC is used to issue commands to the DART

Note: an alternative way to change parameters of a DART is to connect electrically to an Interface Test Box containing an RS485-to-USB Adaptor, with a PC running a suitable Terminal program.

Connecting the iWand

Note that it may be prudent to reset the iWand to default settings, in the event it has been used for any other non‑standard purpose.

Connect a USB lead from the iWand to a PC running a Terminal program (in this example 6G Terminal Lite).

Choose the correct port for the USB port (indicated by iWand shown below).

Click Connect (without changing the settings shown below).

The 6G Setup tab should populate with parameters from the iWand.

Select the Manual Commands tab and send the PORT command.

In this example, P0;BR115200;CF0;RS232 indicates that the RS232 port is set to 115,200 baud.

This should be changed this to 9600 baud by sending the following command: PORT:P0;BR9600

Click Disconnect.

RS232 Comms

To use RS232 comms you’ll need an RS232 cable with cross-over (i.e. a Null Modem).

Access the RS232 port.

Click Connect (without changing the settings shown below).

The 6G Setup tab should again populate with parameters from the iWand.

Select the Manual Commands tab and send a simple CS command to check electrically connectivity with the iWand.

Either, push the iWand’s acoustic antenna against the rubber boot of the DART…

…or wrap the test loop around it (if the iWand has one).

Send the following command (assume an address of 4912 in this example): FS:4912;W4

Anticipate a reply similar to that shown (Note the User ID – in this case 002EA9).

Changing the address

To change the Address to 4911, for example, send the following command: SC:4912;W4,U2EA9,AD4911 (Note that the User ID does not require leading zeros.)

The Address has now changed to 4911.

Check that the following parameters have been set by sending the command: CS:4911;W4

RXW10000
TPL187
NPL187
AT1
EC0

You can force the above parameters by sending a single command: CS:4911;W4,RXW10000,NPL187,TPL187,AT1,EC0

Storing the parameters

Finally, send the command: SC:4911;W4,U2EA9,STR;CS to store the parameters to the DART’s EEPROM so that in the event of a power failure or battery pack replacement, the DART will still hold the stored values.

The DART is now ready for deployment with the address 4911.

This article describes how to use the Auto Discover to scan the water for unknown transponder addresses in Marksman and Ranger 2.

1. Click the Environment icon to open the Environmental Settings .

2. Set the Operating Range relatively high, so that a large area of the sea can be covered (or make it smaller to focus on a smaller area).

3. Click the Beacons icon to open the Beacons table.

4. Click Auto Discover.

5. Select the Wideband type of Sonardyne transponder that you wish to search for.

6. In this example, we’ll search for Compatt 6 Transponders with Wideband 2 Addresses; Click Discover.

7. Marksman/Ranger 2 searches for these types of transponder within the range that was specified in Environmental Settings above.

8. When the range time has been met, any detected transponders will be displayed.

 

Contact [email protected] for more information.

This article describes the procedure for formatting the sound speed profile for Marksman and Ranger 2.

1. The Marksman/Ranger 2 system will accept a .pro file to import the sound speed profile. The file format must be:

Example 1:

Example 2:

2. The .pro file should be stored on the Marksman/Ranger 2 PC.

3. Follow the instructions listed in Section Environmental Settings > Configuring the Sound Speed in the Marksman/Ranger 2 user manual to load the sound speed profile.

 

Contact [email protected] for more information.

The traditional method of providing an acoustic reference position to a Dynamic Positioning System (DPS) using USBL-derived beacon positions, is to simply send that beacon’s position telegram.

Sometimes, the DPS will accept the telegram configured as a Mobile beacon, as shown below.

More often, the beacon is assigned as Fixed in order to be accepted, and used as a DP reference.

Having more than one reference beacon is sometimes useful.

In this example, the telegram sent to the DPS will look something like this.

However, some DPS Desks do not accept beacon references as they require the vessel reference.

In this case, you would configure the telegram as follows:

The reference beacon is selected from the Frame of Reference drop-down list.

In this example, the telegram sent to the DPS will look something like this:

The 02 after df defines a Message 2, or Ship telegram.

This article describes how to mount and extract an ISO image to the PC using Windows® 10.

Sonardyne supplies ISO images for our navigation, subsea equipment and test software for customers.

Note: Windows 10 allows you to mount an ISO image without requiring any other software.

Procedure 

1. Open File Explorer and navigate to the ISO image file.

2. Right-click on the file and select Mount.

3. The image will be mounted to a drive and displayed in the File Explorer drives and folders tree.

4. Open the drive to view the extracted files.

Contact [email protected] for more information.

This article shows you how to connect and configure a Nano Transponder using NFC Configurator software.

You will need the following equipment:

Connection and operating

1. Ensure the NFC Configurator software is installed on your PC.

2. Open the NFC Configurator software.

3. Set the Nano transponder on the NFC Module.

4. Confirm Connected status is reported.

5. Select Enable/Disable.

Sonardyne strongly recommends setting the Nano Transponder to Disabled unless on operations.

5. Prior to deployment and as part of the post deployment procedures it is recommended to record the following information after enabling the Nano:

6. The Self Test should be completed and if passed the NFC Configurator will display Self Test Successful.

7. You can also change the Nano’s address by selecting Select Address.

8. If you need to change the address, it is strongly recommended to note the original address and new address prior to deployment. The address window displays the available addresses:

Currently, there are a limited number of manual commands Manual CMD that can be sent. Sonardyne strongly recommends the manual command should not be changed or modified.

The commands are:

Please note: these commands are automatically sent during the initial communication and are displayed on the main window.

Contact [email protected] for more information.