Marine environmental sensors in hydrographic surveys

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Marine environmental sensors in hydrographic surveys

Sanders, Pat / Sanders, Jessie

To meet the growing demand for the incorporation of marine environmental sensors with a commercial hydrographic software package, HYPACK teamed up with Endeco/YSI, thereby integrating HYPACK MAX hydrographic surveying software with the YSI Sonde environmental sensor. HYPACK were looking for a sensor that could be mounted on a vessel or towed alongside to make surface measurements while conventional hydrographic survey lines were run. The MAX software integrates over 250 types of positioning systems, echosounders, magnetometers, gyros, and other sensors into its survey program. The Sonde can be deployed as either an in-situ sensor, logging data internally, or as a real-time sensor, transmitting measurements at a rate of up to two times per second over an RS-232 link. The main tasks to integrate the marine environmental sensors into HYPACK were to develop a device driver for the Sonde 6600, modify the single beam editor to edit and save the selected sensor measurements, and check the final product programs to ensure compatibility. The single-beam editor (SBMAX) from HYPACK is used to edit single beam and dual-frequency echosounder data. The combination of the Sonde 6600 and HYPACK MAX was successfully field tested in the simultaneous collection of depth and marine environmental data.