Plug-and-play compass selected for survey package

Photo: Advanced Navigation

Advanced Navigation’s plug-and-play GNSS Compass was selected by Nortek for its new survey package. Nortek’s scientific instruments apply the Doppler principle to underwater acoustics to measure water in motion, such as currents and waves. The instruments are used by scientists, researchers and engineers worldwide, employed in demanding environments that require state-of-the-art instrumentation that is reliable and easy to use.

A vessel-mounted acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) measures the velocity of currents beneath a moving vessel. To correct the measured values for vessel speed and direction, ADCP measurements require accurate velocity and heading information. Besides the use of bottom track within the ADCP itself, such information can be provided externally using a GNSS receiver and a non-magnetic heading source such as a gyro compass.

Nortek’s ADCP package — Signature VM — offers operational convenience and reduced complexity. As part of the package, Advanced Navigation’s GNSS Compass provides accurate dual-antenna GNSS-based heading that is not subject to magnetic interference. Its inertial navigation system (INS) can maintain accurate heading during GNSS outages of up to 20 minutes. “By making use of today’s modern Ethernet instruments, such as the Signature ADCP and the GNSS Compass, we can guarantee nanosecond time synchronization with Ethernet PTP protocol,” said Herman Huitema, VM product manager at Nortek. “Data from the ADCP can be exactly aligned with the GNSS Compass information.”