Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV)
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A case study from Seabots looks at bathymetry and mooring control with FURUNO’s WASSP S3R multibeam echosounder integrated onto a SB 100 PRO unmanned surface vehicle (USV) at Club de Vela Blanes.
The goal consisted in determining the depth, by means of a precision system, of Club de Vela Blanes’ entire area.
This club manages a part of the Port of Blanes, taking responsibility for it and guaranteeing the safety of the boats that moor there. Drafting control is vital for proper signaling and a safe passage of boats and ships.
At the same time, the exact location of the boat mooring area was requested. The problems related to these structures range from burying, degradation, movement and breaking of those chains connected to them.
Determining where these mooring piles are and their dimensions by using an unmanned surface vehicle with a multibeam probe, this task may take less than 3 hours for the entire port. Traditionally, this inspection is carried out in several days by hiring professional divers who must dive safely to identify and control mooring piles.
The operation took approximately 3.5 hours. The distance between transects had to be modified during the operation, in order to perform a 100% overlap between transects. The transects were separated from 3m in the shallower areas to 12m between lines in the deeper areas.
Only a motor battery change was carried out at 2.5 hours to ensure complete and continuous work, without any loss of data. The team worked with RTK in the USV through the Ntrip system, with the direct connection of the SB 100 PRO to the national network of GNSS stations, ERGNSS. The station corresponding to Blanes was CASE (Cassà de la Selva).
