The 3000m rated Leopard is the most powerful electric underwater robotic work system in the world, making it ideal for complex and demanding tasks.

In a bid to master mountainous seas the Saab Seaeye Leopard ROV system recently delivered to Japan’s Kaiyo Engineering has added an active heave compensator (AHC) to its launch and recovery system.

Kaiyo Engineering, a specialist marine science company, is undertaking seabed research for Tokyo University and is using the Leopard to explore the feasibility of seabed mining.

Adding AHC means Kaiyo can work offshore more easily in high sea states, as the AHC system will accurately maintain the exact relative depth of the tether management system from which the Leopard is deployed by compensating for wave movement and effectively creating a motionless state between them. This significantly increases the ease of ROV operations in high sea states.

The highly advanced AHC system from Scantrol is designed to maintain accurate position control at the winch in real time by calculating and compensating for any displacement of the vessel caused by wave movement. Increased operational time, safety, ease of use and efficient commissioning is the main focus of Scantrol AHC.

Log file of winch response during tests in Japan. The green curve shows the vessel heave at the LARS and the orange curve the actual response of the winch. The harmonious relationship between both curves illustrates how the AHC’s millisecond response to displacement achieves accurate compensation.

With the knowledge from simulations and tests performed prior to the commissioning, the LARS system was upgraded on board the vessel by Hydramec and Scantrol in only three days.

In Japan the system was tested to record winch response and winch speed, by simulating 3m vessel displacement down to the Leopard’s 3000 metre rated depth.

Saab Seaeye is the world’s leading underwater e‐robotics company with the most advanced range of tethered, autonomous and hybrid robotic systems engineered to address the diverse range of tasks found across commercial, defence and scientific markets.

Scantrol is an independent supplier of monitoring and control systems to the modern marine and offshore industries. The control systems range from simple winch control systems to the most advanced controls for offshore support vessels, seismic vessels, marine research vessels, fishing vessels, semi subs and barges.

Hydramec, founded in 1990, manufacture ROV launch and recovery systems and also maintain a considerable fleet of offshore vessels on behalf of their clients.

For more information contact:

Matt Bates Saab Seaeye Limited +44 (0)1489 898000 matt.bates@saabgroup.com www.seaeye.com

Rolf Krogh Hjelmeland Scantrol AS +47 5555 30 15 15 rolf@scantrol.com www.scantrol.com

Danny Church Hydramec Offshore Hydraulic Systems Ltd +44 (0) 1493 441000 danny@hydramec.com www.hydramec.com