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Accurate positioning offshore is essential to efficiently guide offshore vessels and equipment as,
construction barges, anchor tugs, drilling rigs, anchor tugs etc. Positioning is a key element
in offshore surveying as it ties all measurements together and allows presentation of information
and results on a geographical chart. It can be said that without accurate positioning that offshore
construction activities would grind to a halt. Fugro has developed an in-house suite of GPS satellite
based positioning services that are used to support offshore operations. These services are:
- Starfix.L1
| Single frequency DGPS |
- Starfix.Plus
| Dual frequency DGPS |
- Starfix.HP
| Dual frequency High Precision DGPS |
- Skyfix.XP
| Dual frequency High Precision system that utilizes precise orbits. |
These services pre-dominantly utilise the US based GPS satellite positioning system which is augmented with a Fugro maintained network of so-called reference stations. By applying so-called differential corrections the performance and accuracy of the GPS system (ca 10m) is enhanced to a level that is acceptable for the Offshore industry.
The Starfix.HP and Skyfix.XP systems provide services of similar capability but are purposely kept separate in both the hardware/software solution and in the supporting DGPS network infrastructure. This is essential as many clients require independent positioning systems on board their vessel to mitigate risk of failure and to ensure maximum integrity and robustness of the positioning systems provided.
The two systems operate on different principles but both provide positioning accuracies in the order of 15 cm at distances of 1000 km from the coast.
Further information regarding these services these can be found in the
here
Another navigation solution that is developed in-house by Fugro is a system that provides highly
accurate positioning of Gun Floats. The gun float is used by seismic clients to support the seismic
guns that are used to generate the acoustic signal that provides the sub seabed data. The environment
in which these systems are required to work is extremely harsh and require special packaging and
software that can quickly recover from blocking because of spray and waves. This system is called
Starfix.Protrack .™
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geotechnical services
