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42 st / March 2015 www.sea-technology.com Latest Developments The fourth model of the Ellipse Series is now on the mar- ket. The Ellipse-D is a sensor that is a little larger than the others in the series because it integrates a dual-frequency GNSS receiver with two antennas for accurate and robust heading, especially in disturbed magnetic environments. To meet hydrographers' needs even further, SBG Systems just released a hydrographic package composed of a tita- nium subsea version of the Ekinox that can be placed under a boat, close to the sonar head, or connected to a SplitBox. The SplitBox integrates multiple connectors and is an easy interface for customer equipment, such as real-time sonar motion compensation, time reference and data acquisition software. As an option, the SplitBox embeds a triband GNSS receiver with two antennas. This solution gives access to RTK and PPP corrections such as Terrastar, OmniSTAR or Marinestar. n Alexis Guinamard is co-founder and CTO of SBG Systems. He has been work- ing in the inertial systems industry since 2006. He holds a master's degree in embedded systems and has a strong background in data-fusion algorithms, Kal- man fltering and signal processing, which are all essential for high-performance inertial sensor design. Hélène Leplomb is the marketing and communication manager of SBG Sys- tems. She has a master's degree in marketing management and has been work- ing in the surveying industry for nine years. Gilles Dandec is the founder and general manager of CADDEN. He has more than 30 years of experience in the marine sector. CADDEN provides turnkey bathymetric solutions and an integrated hydrographic pack for survey vessels. Serving as an integrator and distributor of leading brands, the company also designs the GEOD series of smart GNSS antennas for hydrography and naviga- tion applications. Ekinox Applications The Ekinox series was designed for hydrographic use in shallow water. It provides survey-grade attitude and heave and integrates a data logger for post-processing data after a survey for even higher accuracy. Additionally, it embeds a Web interface for easy confguration, and comes with a SplitBox, a hardware module that allows easy connection with external equipment and interfaces. The Ekinox has been designed to ease the life of the sur- veyor with lightweight sensors, simple installation and con- fguration. The small size of the Ekinox combined with its perfor- mance has also opened a new market: USVs. It can be easily integrated into small automatic vehicles to provide navigation and motion data for sonar compensation, data georeferencing and vehicle guidance. Ellipse Applications With its small size, low power consumption and light weight, the Ellipse is designed to be integrated into end- products. For example, the Ellipse-N model integrates a single frequency GNSS receiver and bases the heading on magnetometers. This very small INS/GPS is mostly used in racing boats, providing navigation, speed and heading data for autopilot. It is also a popular model in the buoy industry, whether for instrumentation or subsea positioning. The Ellipse-A, a mo- tion sensor, is more likely to replace a fuxgate compass in ROVs or small AUVs, offering accurate attitude data in ad- dition to heading. Multibeam echosounders require highly accurate roll, pitch and heave data, and a higher-grade sensor such as Ekinox should be the most suitable for these applications. Thanks to the results obtained in the latest testing, it is clear that the Ellipse can be considered as a reliable and cost- effective solution for side scan sonar or single-beam echo- sounder stabilization. Indeed, as the Ellipse shares the same protocol as the Ekinox sensor, it is also compatible with the most popular acquisition and processing hydrographic soft- ware. This graph shows typical behavior of heave algo- rithm outputs in com- parison with a reference (tide-compensated RTK altitude). Like what you're reading? Keep up to date with SEA TECHNOLOGY news on Twitter.com/seatechnology, Facebook.com/seatechnologymag and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/sea-technology-magazine. Celebrating more than 50 years of serving the global ocean community - Since 1963 -