The performance of today’s leading edge towed seismic streamer systems and bottom mounted arrays are demanding more efficient, reliable and accurate cable navigation and positioning. In seismic system installations, these systems require high heading and attitude accuracy real-time and under extreme ocean conditions.
Precise and real-time measurements of heading, pitch, and roll angles along the array cables are valuable output data for accurate seismic streamer navigation, positioning and survey performance. The complex nature of dynamic seismic sub-bottom profiling and imaging systems presents significant technical challenges, requiring maximum sensor accuracy- reliably, quickly, and repeatedly. Seismic data collection is costly and time consuming. Oil & gas geophysical exploration customers are increasing demands for better survey data quality.
A complete system integrating MEMS inertial sensors, magnetometers, and algorithms to process and manage sensor data is required to overcome this challenging application. More accurate streamer positioning and navigation results in enhanced, higher resolution image processing from the ship’s survey. For seismic streamers and in-water ancillary equipment this must be accomplished cost effectively within a small, lightweight package with minimal power demands on the data acquisition system.
