www.sea-technology.com July 2015 / st 29
T
he ever increasing capabilities of sen-
sors and cameras that can be deployed by
ROVs, and the expectations these create, have
resulted in a gap between sensor data and the
electronics to deliver the data via umbilical f-
ber link. And with the increasing availability of
(and expectation for) HD video, a host of exist-
ing ROVs are getting caught without the band-
width to handle the data produced by available
technologies.
This issue is especially acute for both legacy
ROVs and space-constrained custom designs,
where this "bandwidth gap" can impact the ef-
fectiveness and cost justifcation for the often
expensive task of deploying an ROV. The irony
is that the fber-optic cable typically used for
tethered ROVs is capable of handling much
greater data rates than the electronics on the
vehicles.
SeaView Systems (Dexter, Michigan), a pro-
vider of ROV services, custom vehicles and
hardware, has developed the OmniData multi-
plexer stack to open new possibilities for com-
pact custom vehicles and to breathe new life
into legacy ROV platforms hampered by band-
width constraints.
Many ROVs provide a data backbone that
might support two or three standard-defnition
cameras and some serial data. Managing the
demands of multiple HD video streams or ap-
plications, such as multibeam sonar, often re-
quires additional cards in vehicles where space
is at a premium or nonexistent.
SeaView's multiplexer and data converter
suite were designed to break through this bot-
tleneck with a set of video, serial and Ethernet
ports (including RS485-232 conversion) and
timing triggers, all on a single card. The mul-
tiplexer is part of a family of cards that can be
confgured based on the needs of the job and
available space. For example, in the case of
SeaView Multiplexer Enhances
ROV Data Communications
PC-104-Compatible Upgrade Suits Space-Constrained Custom Vehicles,
Breathes New Life Into Legacy Equipment
By Matthew Cook • Richard Funk
Multibeam bathymetry data from
a recent shallow-water MEC/UXO
survey, produced by the TEMA
towfsh equipped with a three-
sensor array.