Sonardyne underwater positioning and tracking technology is to be used to support search and recovery operations undertaken by the Republic of Korea Navy’s new auxiliary submarine rescue ship (ASR-II).
Through a contract with GE’s Power Conversion business, the ASR-II will be fitted with Sonardyne’s Ranger 2 Ultra-Short BaseLine (USBL) system.
This will interface onboard the vessel with GE’s Seastream Dynamic Position (DP) control system.
The Ranger 2 onboard the ASR-II will also be used to simultaneously track the position of, and communicate with, Sonardyne instrumentation fitted to the new, untethered Deep Search Rescue Vehicle (DSRV) that is being built to operate from the ship when it comes into service.
The ASR-II and its moonpool-deployed DSRV are being built under South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration as a replacement for the submarine rescue ship RoKS Cheonghaejin. The 5,200-tonne ASR-II is expected to be delivered to the RoKN by the end of 2022.
Sonardyne’s order from GE’s Power Conversion business includes a seabed-deployed 3,000 m-rated Dynamic Positioning Transponder 6 (DPT 6) with recovery floatation collar to provide high accuracy USBL positioning.
The control room software will be fitted with a Ranger 2 Marine Robotics Pack, which unlocks an additional range of features to enable the vessel crew to both track the DSRV and also communicate with it by sending and receiving status messages.
Finally, Sonardyne will also supply a deployment machine and gate valve, through which the Ranger 2 HPT 5000 USBL transceiver will be deployed through the hull of the ASR-II.
Derek Lynch, global business manager for Marine Vessel Systems at Sonardyne, said: “The configuration of equipment we’re supplying to the ASR-II means it will have everything it needs to arrive on site and begin working immediately to support search, rescue and recovery operations anywhere in the world.”