GeoSwath upgrade

GeoAcoustics of Great Yarmouth in the UK, which has a customer base in over 60 countries and is now a subsidiary of Norway’s Kongsberg Maritime, has launched GeoSwath 4, a fourth generation version of its ten year-old series of GeoSwath shallow water multibeam sounders.

Claimed to be the most advanced system of its type and designed for a diverse range of applications, it features a smaller and lighter new-look deck unit with sufficient Ethernet, USB and serial interfaces to accommodate any combination of peripheral sensors. Inside, new hardware enables the system to transmit on both port and starboard transducers simultaneously, doubling former along-track density to increase overall levels of performance and resolution.

High levels of productivity are said to be due to a particularly wide swath coverage which can exceed 12 times water depth in addition to data coverage up to water lines. The system also enables reliable seabed classification and monitoring with real-time sidescan data, co-registered and geo-referenced and calibrated for repeatable results.

With real-time processing and software and 64-bit acquisition and processing supported by improved graphics GeoSwath 4 is available in three distinct versions for versatile deployment. The basic model features the improved deck unit and compact transducer head as standard while a rugged version (GeoSwath 4R) for deployment in extreme environments additionally has an IP68 protection from dust and water ingress rating and 24 VDC power supply. The third version is configured specifically for AUV, USV and ROV operations.