Seatronics Invests in iXBlue’s Inertial and Acoustic Products

Seatronics Ltd, an Acteon company, has expanded its equipment rental pool to include more iXBlue inertial and acoustic products in response to increasing market demand for inertial navigation technology to enhance positioning for deepwater projects in West Africa and Brazil.

The order, which brought the company’s total 2012 expenditure with iXBlue to more than €3 million, reflects a wider shift to inertial technology as the subsea market moves away from relying on acoustic positioning solutions.

The systems covered by the latest round of investment include:

• five more iXBlue PHINS 6000 systems for rental stock. The PHINS 6000, the highest specification inertial system available on the commercial market, is used routinely in demanding subsea measurement applications such as pipeline out-of-straightness monitoring and spool piece metrology.

• upgrades to 12 existing iXBlue OCTANS Gen 4 subsea gyros to the full inertial navigation system capability available from ROVINS with a simple firmware change. The versatile ROVINS sensor can be integrated with a DVL to provide a robust ROV positioning solution that will enhance the performance of any acoustic positioning.

• 12 additional OCTANS Gen 4 industry standard subsea survey gyrocompasses.

Seatronics Ltd is part of Acteon’s marine electronics, instrumentation and survey business, and continuing investment in new technology is helping to maintain its position as a world leader in the rental and sale of electronic marine equipment.

“This investment establishes Seatronics as iXBlue’s largest commercial customer and shows the faith that Seatronics and its clients have in the iXBlue product range,” said Seatronics Group managing director David Currie. “We can perform system calibrations before mobilisation and integrate full inertial navigation system and multi-beam echo-sounder spreads through a high-end RTS Gen 5 fibre multiplexer solution. The combination of Seatronics’ engineering support and more than 140 iXBlue assets enables us to meet customer requirements for inertial navigation system solutions.”

David Cunningham, general manager of iXBlue’s UK subsidiary, said, “We are delighted to see a rapid increase in the use of iXBlue’s inertial technology. We believe that our systems offer unrivalled performance and flexibility while maintaining the openness and ease of use that are vitally important to Seatronics and its customers.”

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Press Release, January 24, 2013