Subsea services provider DOF Subsea has equipped a further three of its Brazilian offshore vessel fleet with hybrid acoustic and inertial navigation technology from Sonardyne Brasil Ltda.
Sonardyne’s SPRINT-Nav all-in-one subsea navigation instruments are now supporting five Forum Energy Technologies (FET) remotely operated vehicles (ROV) on board the three vessels. This latest order takes the total number of DOF Subsea’s Brazilian vessels equipped with SPRINT-Nav aided ROVs to six.
SPRINT-Nav combines Sonardyne’s SPRINT sensor, Syrinx 600 kHz Doppler velocity log (DVL) and a pressure sensor in a single housing, making it one of the smallest combined acoustic-inertial navigation instruments on the market, according to the manufacturer.
DOF Subsea’s growing fleet of SPRINT-Nav systems will be used to support the company’s ROV operations, as part of construction, inspection, maintenance and repair (IMR) work in Brazil’s deepwater pre-salt oil fields, in depths down to 3,000 meters.
Fábio Nóbrega, Survey Manager at DOF, said, “Having adopted SPRINT-Navs for three of our vessels earlier this year, we’re seeing clear benefits. Not only do we now have high-performance hybrid acoustic aided INS positioning for our underwater vehicles, we also benefit from Sonardyne Brasil Ltda.’s support here in Brazil, from training to support during installation and commissioning, all by local specialized field engineers.”
Within the last year alone, Sonardyne has supplied nine Brazil based vessels with its acoustic positioning and navigation technologies, from Ultra-Short BaseLine (USBL) systems to hybrid navigation technology, the company said.