Kongsberg Maritime Ltd, the UK division of Kongsberg Maritime has completed the first ever APOS Survey installation on Bibby Offshore’s long term charter vessel, the Olympic Bibby.
Launched this December, the new APOS Survey operator station enables surveyors to leverage the power of Kongsberg Maritime’s de facto industry standard HiPAP High Precision Acoustic Positioning system, to deliver accurate survey results simultaneously, whilst the HIPAP is still utilised as a DP position reference.
With state-of-the-art new generation of positioning software for flexible, cost effective subsea survey and construction operations, APOS Survey station offers full LBL and SSBL, quicker mobilisation times and is designed for both permanent and temporary installation on vessels, negating the mobilisation cost and time associated with over the side portable transducers.
APOS Survey communicates directly with the HiPAP transceiver, which enables the surveyor to operate independently of the bridge. Acoustic interrogations are interleaved or run simultaneously with the DP system updates, without making changes to the vessel’s APOS software or installation parameters. With APOS Survey, the surveyor can interface local survey grade sensors, IMU, gyro and GNSS, set up lever arms and load sound velocity profiles independent of the vessel, thus unlocking the full potential of HiPAP for survey operations.
Ed Fennell, sales manager, Subsea of Kongsberg Maritime Ltd’s Aberdeen base said: “This innovative software safely integrates into the vessel’s HiPAP system through a high speed optically-isolated serial connection to maintain independence from the vessel’s Dynamic Positioning (DP) network, and allows the bridge crew to maintain full control of what is shared with APOS Survey.
“Additionally, the software in APOS Survey removes any restrictions normally associated with operating a HiPAP system for survey purposes as it is predominantly used as a (DP) reference system. Having Bibby Offshore as our first client to utilise APOS Survey is a fantastic development for Kongsberg Maritime, and we look forward to working closely with Bibby Offshore as they utilise the new product for efficient and effective operations,” adds Fennell.
Robin Longstaff, survey manager at Bibby Offshore, said: “We are very pleased to be the first to utilise this new technology and experience first-hand the benefits that it brings. The built in software offers great ease of operation and fully integrates with our existing survey suite, which eliminates the need for further re-training of staff.
“Added to this is its ability to operate independently from the vessel’s sensors and settings, which allows us to integrate our survey grade sensors thus unlocking the full positioning potential of the vessel’s HiPAP. APOS Survey also allows us to quickly and easily add additional ROV transceivers for increased functionality.”