SonarBell® demonstration a success despite best efforts of local sailors

Tuesday, 1st November 2011

Subsea Asset Location Technologies Ltd (SALT) successfully demonstrated its SonarBell® technology at ABP Southampton recently.  The invited audience included marine survey companies, government marine related agencies, engineering and environmental consultants, archaeologists and marine equipment manufacturers and suppliers.

SonarBell® is an inert, stable and totally passive device for marking and locating any asset on the seabed or in the water column.  It is omni-directional, requires no maintenance, ranges in size from 50-200mm and is visible for up to 2km, depending on the frequency and power of the sonar.  SonarBell® is easily deployed in depths of water to 300m to mark assets that need to be monitored, repaired or recovered.  The technology is innovative, easy to use and is less expensive to purchase and deploy than traditional battery powered and active transponder systems.

The demonstration days started with presentations by SALT CEO, Dr Andy Tulloch, about Subsea Asset Intelligent Location Systems (SAILS) to enable guests to gain an understanding of the technology and its application in the wider survey, fisheries, offshore energy, regulatory and environmental sectors. SALT CTO, Carl Tiltman gave an outline presentation on the SonarBell® technology and its capabilities, followed by practical demonstrations in Southampton Water on the ABP Survey Vessel ‘Protector’.  The weather was glorious throughout.

Despite a power boat coming close to ‘Protector’ on the first day and a yacht fouling the demonstration’s mooring line on the second day, ABP’s Reson SeaBat 8101 multi-beam sonar system easily detected and indentified the array of SonarBells, which had been pre-deployed on the seabed.  Back in the classroom, each day finished with a demonstration by OceanWise MD, Dr Mike Osborne, of how, by using the SonarBell® unique labelling, the sonar reflection from individual SonarBells can be transferred onto GIS for visualization and as markers within a comprehensive asset management system.

SALT and OceanWise acknowledge and would like to thank Port Hydrographer, Billy Johnson, and all of the ABP personnel who made the demonstration days a great success.

About Subsea Asset Location Technologies (SALT) Limited

SALT Ltd is a spin-out company from the UK Ministry of Defence’s, Defence Science and Technology Laboratories (DSTL), and was formed to make this military derived technology available to a wider market.  

SonarBell® is already being deployed in the defence sector and is now being actively developed and used by various commercial and regulatory sectors worldwide.  The demonstration days in Southampton were one of a number promoting SonarBell® to these sectors.

For more information about SALT or the SonarBell® technology, please visit the SALT website at www.cesalt.co.uk or email info@cesalt.co.uk.

About OceanWise Limited

OceanWise Ltd is an independent company specialising in all aspects of marine environmental data acquisition, data and knowledge management and GIS.  The company is a SALT Solutions Provider and is helping to develop and promote SonarBell® in commercial markets.

For more information on OceanWise or how GIS is being used in the marine environment, please visit www.oceanwise.eu or email Dr Mike Osborne on mike.osborne@oceanwise.eu.

Photo: SALT’s CTO, Carl Tiltman describing SonarBell® to the invited audience at ABP Southampton.

Author: SALT Admin