SBG’s Horizon IMU equips for harsh-environment hydrography

The Horizon fiberoptic gyro (FOG) inertial measurement unit (IMU) now forms part of SBG Systems’ Navsight Marine Solution, dedicated to hydrographers. Navsight is available at different levels of accuracy to meet the various application requirements and can be connected to various external equipment such as echo-sounders, lidar, and so on.

Photo: SBG Systems

Navsight Marine Solution already offered two levels of performance with the Ekinox and Apogee IMUs. These MEMS-based IMUs address most of hydrographics markets whether shallow or deep water.

The new Horizon IMU enables customers to deploy Navsight in the most demanding environments such as surveying highly dense areas (bridges, buildings, and so on) as well as applications where only a single antenna can be used.

The Horizon IMU is based on a closed-loop FOG technology which enables ultra-low bias and noise levels. This technology allows robust and consistent performance even in low dynamics survey.

Navsight solution is easy to install, as the sensor alignment and lever arms are automatically estimated and validated. Once connected to the Navsight processing unit, the web interface guides the user to configure the solution. A 3D view of the vessel shows the entered parameters so that the user can check the installation. The Navsight unit also integrates light emitting diode (LED) indicators for satellite availability, RTK corrections, and power. It comes with a rugged enclosure, or in a rack version for larger vessels.

Completing the Navsight offer, Qinertia, SBG’s post-processing software, gives access to offline RTK corrections from more than 7,000 base stations located in 164 countries. Trajectory and orientation are then greatly improved by processing inertial data and raw GNSS observables in forward and backward directions. Computation takes less than 3 minutes for a 6-hour log thanks to the Forward and Backward calculation processed at the same time.