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www.seadiscovery.com Marine Technology Reporter 11 By Maggie L. Merrill IXSEA, headquartered in Marlay le Roi, France specializes in navigational, subsea positioning and imagery systems and solu- tions. This spring the company launched SHADOWS, a new Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS) device which is tethered to a ship and towed at specific depths and dis- tances from the ship. As a towed body, it is robust and rugged for rough sea conditions. According to Anne Berg, of IXSEA, SHADOWS is the first commercially avail- able off-the-shelf Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS) on the market. It is designed to be a quick and efficient high-performance sonar system with synthetic aperture processing, which offers unparalleled image quality in real-time. IXSEA's CEO Thierry Gaiffe hopes that SHADOWS will set a new industry standard for all sidescan sonar sur- veys. "This turnkey integrated survey solu- tion provides real-time, georeferenced mosaic output with 15 cm resolution over 600 m swath with full coverage directly beneath the transducer, therefore cutting survey time and costs." SHADOWS side scan towed fish can be used for cable routing, offshore mining, pre-dredging surveys, small objects search on the seabed and shipwreck search and sal- vage. Not surprising is the fact that SHAD- OWS is compatible with GAPS and POSI- DONIA, IXSEA's Ulta Short Base Line (USBL) positioning systems. SHADOWS includes SAS processing, Gap filler frontal sonar module, GPS inter- face and gigabit data link. It is indeed the full package with fish towing system, work- station, software, raw data storage and backup solutions. IXSEA, has a history of developing and providing innovative technology and expe- rience with for obtaining all sorts of images from the sea floor. It also integrates seismic, sonar and magnetometer imagery data in one spot for easy interpretation. Pictured on the next page is IXSURVEY's newest vessel, the IXSURVEY, a 37-m ship that accommodates an operational crew of six and up to six guests. It was recently com- news Visit www.maritimeequipment.com/mt & Click No. 218 IXSEA Debuts New SAS Vehicle and New Survey Vessel MTR#5 (1-16).qxd 6/16/2006 12:43 PM Page 11
