Multibeam/laser sonar for ships (3D)
QPS Quality Positioning Services
Multibeam echosounders have been used to map the seafloor for almost two decades. Sensor resolution has increased dramatically. Resolutions of 0.5 degrees, or better, are not uncommon. In combination with high ping rates, such high resolutions support acquisition of very dense point clouds. This leads to accurate mapping of small features such as pipelines, underwater structures, wrecks, ordinance and debris. Multibeam imagery data further enhances our view of the underwater environment, adding to the ever-increasing data volumes.
Acquisition of laser data in combination with multibeam data will increase the number of collected points by at least a factor 5, but a factor 10 is probably more realistic. Acquisition rates of 200,000 points per second or even higher can easily be achieved. The increase in data volumes has also triggered the optimization of Qloud. Over the recent months our R&D team managed to optimize the speed of point processing in Qloud with a factor 3. Further optimization was achieved with the introduction of SSD (Solid State Disk) drives. QPS will demonstrate the latest version of Qloud and the latest state of hardware with SSD technology. QPS is now able to load over 600,000 points per second. Once the QTM file (QINSy Terrain Model) has been created the user can retrieve and process up to 2 million points per second.
QPS presented this combined, fully integrated multibeam/laser/digital photo data acquisition and processing system at the Oceanology 2010 Conference in London .
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