ROV Navigation and Positioning
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During underwater missions, ROVs frequently encounter dynamic currents, communication challenges, and poor visibility, often leading to a loss of vehicle tracking and obscured video feeds. Water Linked provides advanced solutions to enhance ROV navigation, control, visibility, and communication, ensuring reliable performance in even the most demanding underwater environments.
Enhance your ROV navigation with our DVLs
Photo courtesy of Boxfish Robotics
Our Doppler Velocity Logs (DVLs), such as the DVL A50 and DVL A125, are essential for ROV navigation, providing accurate velocity data relative to the seabed. This data allows ROVs to navigate with greater precision and stability, even in dynamic environments like strong currents or complex terrain.
Our DVLs can independently handle short-term dead-reckoning navigation with their built-in IMU, offering reliable positioning for quick, short-range tasks.
For longer and more complex missions, our DVLs can easily integrate with external Inertial Navigation Systems (INS), using our intuitive API for seamless connectivity. This integration is key to minimizing drift errors that occur with INS alone, providing long-term stability and accuracy.
The combination of DVL and INS allows ROVs to maintain precise positioning even during extended operations, ensuring that drift and navigational errors are minimal.
Optimize your vehicle control
Tired of having the current dictate your ROVs movements? With the Water Linked DVLs, you can enhance the stability of your ROV and transform your ROV operations.
ROVs are operated in real-time by pilots who need fast, reliable feedback on position and velocity to make quick adjustments. With the help of Water Linked DVLs, ROVs can optimize vehicle control. This is especially useful for precision tasks, such as inspections and operating ROV tools.
Our DVLs also ensure ROVs maintain a bottom lock and can easily follow the contours of the seabed, adapting to sudden changes in terrain. This capability is vital for tasks like detailed infrastructure inspection or underwater construction, where terrain-following ensures the ROV can get close to structures without losing control or orientation.
Additionally, station-keeping functionality, enabled by our DVLs, allows ROVs to hover in place, even in moderate to strong currents. This precision hovering is invaluable for activities requiring a steady platform, such as close-up inspections, sampling, or filming underwater scenes. Operators can focus on the task at hand while the ROV maintains its position autonomously.
Water Linked’s DVL A50 and A125 are not only high-performing DVLs, but they are also the world’s smallest and lightest! They’re especially a perfect fit if you have a small ROV or need to save ballast during an ROV mission where your ROV is already heavily equipped.
Explore our DVL A50 Explore our DVL A125
Absolute positioning for challenging environments
UGPS complements our DVL technology by providing an absolute reference point, which helps correct any accumulated INS drift, ensuring that your ROV stays on track for extended missions. This powerful combination can provide positioning reliability in environments where precision is paramount.
Designed with portability, efficiency and ease-of-use in mind, our Underwater GPS systems offer positioning and tracking capabilities without the complexities. Just set up the antenna (UGPS G2 system) and track the locators with absolute GPS position through the user-friendly topside. No need to integrate additional third-party sensors!
No visibility? No problem!
Visibility underwater can often be severely limited, making navigation and object identification challenging for ROV pilots. Water Linked’s Sonar 3D-15 provides a solution by offering real-time 3D imaging of underwater environments and structures, even in low-visibility conditions.
Our Sonar 3D-15 is an advanced, real-time 3D multibeam imaging sonar that can fit in the palm of your hand. It’s ideal for improving ROV navigation and obstacle avoidance.
This 3D sonar allows operators to see beyond what onboard cameras can capture in murky water by generating a detailed, three-dimensional view of the surroundings. This is particularly valuable for ROVs conducting inspections, recovery missions, or underwater construction, where accurate visual data is necessary.
The digitized, geo-referenced point cloud produced by our 3D sonar can create highly detailed models of underwater objects or terrain, supporting tasks like archaeological surveys, wreck inspections, or infrastructure mapping.
This data is easily accessible through the sonar’s web-based GUI, offering a user-friendly experience without the need for additional software installation.
The compact design (0.4 kg in-water weight) ensures the Sonar 3D-15 can be easily integrated into any ROV system without adding significant weight or bulk.
Explore our Sonar 3D-15
Reliable communication
The compact Modem M16 offers reliable, robust communication when interacting with untethered AUVs, subsea sensors, or other ROVs. It serves as a communication bridge for sending mission instructions, status updates, and critical data between vehicles. The Modem M16 is also an excellent backup communication system in case of tether issues, ensuring continuous data transfer and mission success.
Additionally, the Modem M16 is perfect for environmental monitoring or interacting with submerged sensors beyond tether range. Its low power consumption makes it suitable for long-duration missions, while its small size allows for easy integration on ROVs without adding significant weight or bulk.
With the Modem M16, you get reliable, energy-efficient communication, supporting critical underwater operations where traditional tethering alone may not be enough.
Explore our Modem M16
Master any underwater environment, with any size ROV
All of the Water Linked products are small, lightweight and competitively priced. The times that you need a big, heavy, costly ROV to execute high-profile missions are over! Equip yourself with the tools that make a real difference and significantly decrease the amount of bad days for an ROV pilot.
Upgrade your ROV toolkit with our DVLs, 3D sonar and UGPS system, and take your ROV operations to the next level!
Product features
Small size
Our sensors are all developed to fit on small vehicles as well as bigger ones, without compromising performance.
Light weight
Lightweight sensors allow fitment on lighter vehicles, and leave you with excess payload capacity for other equipment.
Low power consumption
Our smart, proprietary technology leaves more power for your other devices or can help free up payload capacity due to requiring
smaller battery packs.
"Water Linked’s agility in addressing our needs ensures seamless integration and operational efficiency. Their team is always available to provide prompt and effective support. We also value the personal touch that fosters a relationship grounded in mutual respect and trust.
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- Cody Warner, Director of Sales and Marketing, Deep Trekker
Customer stories