FUGRO SEARCHER
KVM extenders assist in surveying of the sea bed
The Customer
The 65 meter MV Fugro Searcher is a new, highly equipped geophysical survey vessel providing an acoustically quiet and stable platform for operation in the North Sea and International waters. The vessel is equipped with an array of echo sounders, sonar equipment and sea-bed profilers to service the offshore oil and gas and cable engineering industries.
Sensitive measurement and recording equipment is housed in environmentally-controlled and protected equipment rooms, deep within the hull of the vessel and remotely located from the operators located on the bridge or the Instrument Room.
The Challenge
Blair McGunnigle, Technical Co-ordinator for Fugro explains the layout: “Numerous arrays of specialized survey equipment, computers and data storage need to be co-located in order to minimize cable runs, data attenuation and to maximize signal-to-noise ratios. We needed to connect various devices to monitors, keyboards, mice and other peripheral equipment so that the operators can control it all from their stations around the vessel.”
The Solution
“To do so we selected IHSE’s DVXi KVM extenders, supplied by UK distributor Scene-Double. The extenders provide computer and video extension over the vessel’s Cat7 cable network equipment. Selection was based on the capability of the devices, and the reputation that IHSE’s products have for reliability and resilience.”
The Benefit
Ray Gordon, Founder and Director of Scene Double comments: “Applications of this sort require plug-and-play operation with high levels of continuous operation. Vessels undertaking long surveys at sea cannot carry spare equipment so all the devices selected must be able to withstand harsh environments whilst providing uninterrupted service: which is exactly the type of operational performance we strive to achieve with IHSE’s product range.”