Wärtsilä ELAC SeaBeam Systems

© Wärtsilä PUBLIC

Wärtsilä ELAC SeaBeam Systems

Wärtsilä ELAC Nautik GmbH

17. May 2018 Wärtsilä ELAC SeaBeam Systems1

© Wärtsilä PUBLIC 17. May 2018 Wärtsilä ELAC SeaBeam Systems2

Content

• Wärtsilä ELAC Nautik

• German Research Project SUGAR

• ELAC SeaBeam Multibeam Echo Sounders

• Visualization of High-Resolution WCI Data

• Automatic Object Detection

• Frequency-Modulated Signals

• Automatic Cyclical Steering of the

Transmitted Swaths

• Data Examples

• References

WÄRTSILÄ ELAC SEABEAM SYSTEMS


WÄRTSILÄ ELAC NAUTIK



• ELAC was founded 1926 in Kiel

(Germany).

• Development, production and

marketing are carried out from Kiel.

• Team of approx. 140 employees –

mainly engineers.

• Belongs since June 2015 to the

Finnish Wärtsilä Group (approx.

18,000 employees in 2017)

WÄRTSILÄ ELAC NAUTIK

Wärtsilä ELAC Nautik is specialized in underwater acoustics, echo sounder systems and sonar systems.

Office of Wärtsilä ELAC Nautik in Kiel


WÄRTSILÄ CORPORATION

Sonars andHydroacoustic Systems Turnkey SolutionsShaft Generators

UPS Systems,Resistors, Converters

Safety and Internal Communications Security

Magnetic Ranging andDegaussing Systems

Medium- and Low-Voltage SwitchboardsLow-Loss Concept NavigationHybrid Systems

Integrated Bridge Systems

Direct Electric HeatingEntertainment and Network Systems

Diesel-Electric Propulsion

High-Voltage ShoreConnectionAutomation Dynamic Positioning

Core products and solutions


GERMAN RESEARCH PROJECT SUGAR



Wärtsilä ELAC Nautik was a main industrial partner within the German „Lighthouse“ Research

Project SUGAR and cooperates with the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel.


SUGAR – Submarine Gas Hydrate Reservoirs


• Gas flares at the seabed are indicators for:

− Potential gas hydrate reservoirs

− Potential leakages of gas deposits

• Therefore, gas flare detection is important for:

− The exploration of submarine gas hydrates

− Environmental monitoring


Gas flare detection Detection Target

Water

Hydrate


ELAC SEABEAMMULTIBEAM ECHO SOUNDERS



ELAC SEABEAM MULTIBEAM ECHO SOUNDERS

Medium Water Depth

ELAC

SeaBeam

3030

26 kHz

> 7,500 m

ELAC

SeaBeam

3050

50 kHz

> 3,000 m

Deep Water

ELAC

SeaBeam

3012

12 kHz

> 11,000 m

ELAC

SeaBeam

3020

20 kHz

> 9,000 m

Shallow Water

ELAC

SeaBeam

1180

180 kHz

600 m

Hydroacoustic systems for the complete survey range


• Operating frequency: 12 kHz band

• 11,000 m full ocean depth performance

• Up to 31,000 m swath coverage

• Patented Swept BeamTM technology

• Multi-ping mode

• Real-time water column imaging

(WCI)

• Full auto mode for easy system

operation

• Modular design for different

beam widths

FULL OCEAN DEPTH MULTIBEAM SYSTEM ELAC SEABEAM 3012

Sector Scan Method

Illuminated swath sectors

with discontinuities which

can lead to data artifacts

Illuminated swath (straight line

without discontinuities), based

upon slightly modified sweep

directions at the segment

changes, due to vessel motion.

Swept Beam Method

ELAC SeaBeam 3012

High-performance full ocean depth MBES

Bottom

Swept Beam



• 9,000 m depth performance

• Up to 10,000 m swath coverage


• Multi-ping mode

• Real-time water column imaging

(WCI)

• Full auto mode for easy system

operation

• Modular design for different

beam widths

DEEP-WATER MULTIBEAM SYSTEM ELAC SEABEAM 3020

Sector Scan Method

Illuminated swath sectors

with discontinuities which

can lead to data artifacts

Illuminated swath (straight line

without discontinuities), based

upon slightly modified sweep

directions at the segment

changes, due to vessel motion.

Swept Beam Method

ELAC SeaBeam 3020

High-performance deep-water MBES

Bottom

Swept Beam


• Ice-resistant transducer arrays (Polyurethane shielding)

• ELAC SeaBeam 3012 ICE: Up to 11,000 m depth

performance and 25,000 m swath coverage

• ELAC SeaBeam 3020 ICE: Up to 9,000 m depth

performance and 9,000 m swath coverage


• Multi-ping mode

• Real-time water column imaging (WCI)

• Full auto mode for easy system operation

• Modular design for different beam widths

ICE-RESISTANT DEEP-WATER MULTIBEAM SYSTEMS ELAC SEABEAM 3012/3020 ICE

ELAC SeaBeam 3012/3020 ICE

Ice-resistant deep-water MBES


ELAC SeaBeam 3030

MBES for mapping the continental rise


• Up to 7,500 m depth performance

• Up to 7,500 m bottom coverage

• Multi-ping mode


• Online beam stacking of WCI data

• Advanced transmission beam steering

• Automatic object detection (gas flares)


• Fixed or mobile installation

MEDIUM-DEPTH MULTIBEAM SYSTEM ELAC SEABEAM 3030


ELAC SeaBeam 3050

MBES for mapping the continental slope


• Up to 3,000 m depth performance

• Up to approx. 4,000 m bottom coverage

• Multi-ping mode


• Online beam stacking of WCI data

• Advanced transmission beam steering

• Automatic object detection (gas flares)


• Fixed or mobile installation

• Mobile version for 1.5° x 2° beam width

MEDIUM-DEPTH MULTIBEAM SYSTEM ELAC SEABEAM 3050


VISUALIZATION OF HIGH-RESOLUTION WCI DATA



Functional overview of ELAC WCI Viewer

• Different window types for data visualization

− Sonar data windows, showing the complete image of a ping

− Stacked beam history window, showing the WCI data of

several consecutive pings

• Different scaling and range options

• Manual or automatic depth control

• Forward and backward data playback

as movies or single pictures

• Object and event functionalities

• Display of external sensor data

• Storage of WCI data as AVI video files



WCI data of a single ping

• A sonar data window shows the complete image of a ping.



Beam stacking for several consecutive pings

• As the content within a sonar data window changes from ping to ping, there is a risk that the operator overlooks relevant information.

• Therefore, the ELAC WCI Viewer additionally provides a beam stacking functionality, displaying combined WCI data as a consecutive sequence of pings. This is similar to echograms of single-beam echo sounders.

• Within each ping, a selectable number of across-ship beam directions are combined (“stacked”) to one vertical line.


Selectable

Beam Stacking

Sector

time


AUTOMATIC OBJECT DETECTION



General

• In addition to the visualization of high-resolution WCI data, further benefits can be achieved by an automatic processing of WCI data with respect to object detection.

• Such automatic processing will reduce the workload of operators significantly.

• Wärtsilä ELAC Nautik has developed an automatic object detector (AOD) which is dedicated to gas flares

• The ELAC AOD enables an offline processing of WCI data from ELAC SeaBeam 3030/3050 medium-depth MBES systems.

• It is based upon scientific work, elaborated within the German SUGAR research project.



Algorithmic steps


Conversion

WCI Data

Bottom Suppression

Object Log Files

Object LocalizationSidelobe Suppression

Beam Merging

Windowing

Cleaning

Object Clustering

Object Tracking

Original WCI Data

with Gas Flare

WCI Data after

Sidelobe/ Bottom

Suppression

and Cleaning

Detected

Gas Flare



Ping #116083Ping #116081 Ping #116082 Ping #116084 Ping #116085

Object of a cluster

Cluster center

Tracking of a fas flare


FREQUENCY-MODULATED SIGNALS



FREQUENCY-MODULATED SIGNALS

• Automatic change between CW and FM pulses,

depending upon water depth

• Improved quality of WCI and bottom data,

due to better range resolution

• Increased swath widths

• Pulse shape for better frequency separation

• In order to avoid measurement errors, Doppler

shifts of the operating frequencies induced by

the ship’s movement are compensated.

• The Doppler effect is already compensated on

the WCI data by Doppler-corrected pulse replica

which vary several times within a ping.

FM functionality of theELAC SeaBeam 3030/3050 Mk II systems

Correlation with

pulse replica

Original FM data

Compressed FM data


AUTOMATIC CYCLICAL STEERING OF THE TRANSMITTED SWATHS



Insonification of a spatial volume

• The ELAC SeaBeam 3030/3050 medium-

depth MBES include an automatic cyclical

steering of the transmitted swaths to bow

and to aft.

• The user can specify an angle range and an

angular increment.

• Herewith, a spatial volume under the vessel

can be automatically insonified, without

requiring any movement of the vessel.

AUTOMATIC CYCLICAL STEERING OF THE TRANSMITTED SWATHS

• This functionality is useful for detecting and analyzing gas

flares, leakages or other objects in the water column

during stationary vessel operations or on fixed platforms.


DATA EXAMPLES



DATA EXAMPLES

Gas Flare Detection in the Black Sea

Data provided by courtesy of

GEOMAR, Kiel (Germany)

.

Bathymetric data of the Danube Delta, acquired by R/V POSEIDONin December 2010


Gas flare on the port side

Data from the Danube Delta, acquired by ELAC SeaBeam 3050 on R/V POSEIDON in December 2010

DATA EXAMPLES


Stacked WCI data

Data from the Danube Delta, acquired by

ELAC SeaBeam 3050 on R/V POSEIDONin December 2010

DATA EXAMPLES

The data have been provided by GEOMAR


WCI data with gas flare from the North Sea

DATA EXAMPLES

Data from the North Sea, acquired by ELAC SeaBeam 3050 on R/V POSEIDON in October 2017


DATA EXAMPLES

Stacked WCI data with gas flares

Data from the North Sea, acquired by ELAC SeaBeam 3050on R/V POSEIDONin October 2017


Video with gas flare

Data from the North Sea, acquired by ELAC SeaBeam 3050 on R/V POSEIDON on 01.10.2017

DATA EXAMPLES


REFERENCES

ELAC SeaBeam MBES Systems



ELAC SeaBeam 30xx Systems

REFERENCES

• 23 ELAC SeaBeam 3012/3020

deep-water MBES systems sold,

from which 5 systems are ice-resistant

• 32 ELAC SeaBeam 3030/3050

medium-depth MBES systems sold


THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!ANY QUESTIONS?


Wärtsilä ELAC Nautik GmbH

Neufeldstrasse 10

24118 Kiel, Germany

[email protected]

www.wartsila.com/ELAC

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.wartsila.com/ELAC

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Wärtsilä ELAC SeaBeam Systems