PROJECTS

University of Sligo DEPLA Testing Lower Lough Erne Underwater Camera

The Geotechnical Research Group based at the Institute of Technology Sligo Ireland is currently developing deepwater anchoring systems for floating oil and gas platforms. Part of this development involves field testing of reduced scale anchoring systems. Field testing was carried out in Lough Erne - one of Ireland’s deepest lakes (+70 m). Visual inspection of the mooring line was required at the lake bottom in order establish the penetration depth of the anchoring system.
The Interspec R&D Model PRT014 underwater camera was chosen for the visual inspection of the mooring line. The camera was attached to a custom built cradle and lowered to the lake bed. The unit transmitted real-time imagery to the surface via Bowtech XX8024 cabling. The camera produced high quality images despite operating in turbid lake water with a visibility of less than 1m, Location of test site is 54.493586° N,-7.978258° W

University of Birmingham ROV project

We were tasked on the development of a new lighting concept for a ROV project in the UK university, This light system is a stripped down edition of our usual lights keeping the cost to a complete minimum and keeping simple electrical design and maintain water integrity. The Poseidon light system is a 3 light unit with 2 floods on each side and a spot in the centre for navigation in lower visibility conditions.

Pictures below shows live testing after assembly and there intergration or all the components the following article was submited by Professor Robert Stone.

One of this year’s Final Year Student Projects exposed a group of Third Years to the unforgiving sea off Plymouth.  The student’s original challenge was to design and build a remotely operated vehicle and to dive said ROV onto the helicopter deck of the Scylla – an ex-Royal Navy Frigate scuttled in Whitsand Bay  in 2004 to be come Europe’s first artificial reef.  Onboard the diving support boat Venture, and accompanied by Project Supervisors Prof Bob Stone and Andy Dunn, plus Debbie Cracknell from the National Marine Aquarium (with whom the HIT Team has had a long-standing R&D relationship), it was obvious early on that the tidal swell and weather would not allow a trip out to the Scylla Reef.  Consequently, the decision was taken to dive the ROV off the old Fort that lies inside the Plymouth Breakwater, which provides relatively good protection from the elements.  Whilst the mission was not a 100% success, video footage of the seabed and underwater portions of the Breakwater Fort were obtained.  However, the School’s supervisors agreed that the “mission” was an excellent exercise in exposing students to the importance of close-knit team working, to the challenges of systems integration and to the reality of taking complex systems out of the laboratory and into challenging real-world situations.

Advanced Diver & ROV Lighting

Our recent development for underwater lighing proved to the a great success this was deployed on an Advanced Diver System HS1200, currently operated buy Pheonix diving international, We also tested our ROV light on a Triton XLS system as shown below, the actual working depth on both these units are 400Mtrs or 1200Ft ideal for this kind of shallow water operations, We also do lighter models for saturation diver helmets.

The lighting systems were tested in 310Ft of seawater while on a project in West Africa they worked flawlessley and intergrated on to both systems with ease, if you require futher technical information and avaliability this can be done through contacts page.

Hydra ROV with ISCC (Interspec Subsea Control Center)

UVIC(University of Victoria) Mechatronics ENGR466 Project 2010 was one of our latest educational creations, the ISCC (Interspec Sub-sea Control Center) this modular housing setup is a great building block for the ROV homebuilder and educational projects, we have teamed up with a local university to expand on the original ROV project 'ORCA' that we developed several years ago for schools and special needs groups and expended on the project incorporation new electronics and Arduino off the shelf design.

The design is built around a Port and Starboard pressure housing this allows the weight to be displaced evenly and allows balance of the ROV/AUV better than one single canister can archive, our design also allows additional modules to be added to increases the payload of electronics and cameras / lighting units.

The ISCC consists of a microcontroller that processes the joystick commands via the laptop the data is transferred using RS 232 or 485 protocol; the thrusters have proportional control of the thrusters the data from all of the aux components such as depth and compass heading, this data is then displayed in the GUI.

Underwater Lighting modules

The lighting units currently being designed are being being tested using LED technology this provides a low power margin application and a great selection of light colour's and intensity's to test, custom configurations available with approximate 350 Lumens of lights running at 750mA (if you click on the title above this text this shows a photo album) gives you an idea of the intensity levels and beam patterns.

Some recently built lighting units have been placed in Commercial ROV's and tested to 870 FSW or 290Mtr however future designs should allow 1KM/3000Ft SWD.

In addition to the underwater lighting modules we are currently developing direct replacement LED bulbs that can be fitted to both Video Ray and Seabotix LDV units we will be working on more but at present these items will upgrades for 12VDC 20Watt halogens currently used they offer poor lighting and frequently burn out our units will offer 4 times the light output and will give many years service.

Underwater Camera Units

Several waterproof camera designs have been developed for a number of applications which include fish farms, marine biology, recreational divers and ROV/AUV applications. Camera units are configured to allow a wide input voltage range allowing more diverse integration. Black and White or Colour camera modules can be fitted in the same shell without modification to the camera unit allowing a quick changeover out of the water from camera to light and vice versa.

The underwater camera units have been tested on a number of sub-sea applications including commercial ROV systems our record deep dive was on a Comanche ROV in Grand Banks of the coast of St John, NS, Canada, we tested one of the designs to 900m SWD and it survived quite impressive for such a simple compact design,

Basic design of the camera units was based around a fixed focus B/W or Colour module usually a 512 Line unit coupled with a Balun to allow good signal quality allowed us to create a solid base camera, housed in our patented enclosure. Dimensions are kept small with outside diameter is only 35mm and the length of 145mm allowing us to keep the unit compact and light, There is a voltage regulation circuit that will allow a 9-36VDC input to the camera allowing a large operational range.

LED Dock / Pond lighting

A recent development is a 400 Lumen dock or pond lighting system, the unit in the picture shows a typical domestic application running in conjunction with the pond pumping system, very energy efficient and adds a very classy look to your garden.

 

Please note that all our designs are protected by international copyright law, All pictures on the web site are the sole property of Interspec R&D, Permission must be given by us to use any form of information from this site.