Vigilant Forward Looking Sonar

Overview

Vigilant provides real-time 3D images of the seabed and water column ahead of your vessel. It maintains a history of the entire seabed environment around you. Not only will you know what is ahead of you but Vigilant will also provide automated warnings and cautions to prevent collisions. Hazards are no longer hidden from sight.

Vigilant is our family of long-range, forward looking sonars (FLS). They are compact navigation and obstacle avoidance sonars providing automated alarms warning of objects in the water column out to 1.5 km. They create – with unrivalled resolution and detail – a real-time, easy to interpret 3D terrain map of the seabed and water column ahead, out to 600 m, and down to 100 m water depth.

Fit them to your vessel and you’ll be prepared for anything. Seek out a secluded bay, navigate busy shipping lanes or voyage into the Arctic Circle to watch the Northern Lights with confidence. They are also autonomous vessel ready.

The system consists of a sonar projector and receiver array mounted in the vessel bow, either in the bulb, alongside in a tube or on a retractable deployment pole. In addition, we provide both processing software and hardware and optional bridge display and control hardware.

Vigilant systems are designed for installation in a wide range of vessels, from exploration cruises, private yachts and naval ships to harbour patrol vessels, offshore support vessels and research ships. Engineering support is available from our dedicated team and our experienced travelling engineers can commission and set up the systems onboard as required.

Seaborne collision avoidance is vital for autonomous ships and an ever-increasing number of unmanned surface and underwater vessels in the offshore energy, commercial marine and naval market sectors. Vigilant can be easily integrated into these autonomous platforms. It will provide essential information to autopilots and command and control systems to aid safe navigation and manoeuvres around hazardous obstacles.

Vigilant has two principal operating modes, 3D mode and sonar mode. 3D mode produces stunning 3D bathymetry and colour coded depth imagery using our proprietary altitude confidence filter (ACF), out to 600 m and down to 100 m. Sonar mode processes the intensity of the acoustic data to extract long-range positional data up to 1.5 km and with a 120-degree field of view. In this mode, the sonar returns are used to generate alerts for the operator (or a third-party system) to warn of the presence of a navigationally relevant obstacle.
With its history mapping capability, a comprehensive picture of the underwater environment surrounding the vessel is built up. It provides crews with greater situational awareness for tight manoeuvres or backing out of confined areas.

Combined with our Sentinel Intruder Detection System, naval facilities and assets at anchor or in port can also protect themselves from underwater threats.

The Vigilant FLS family are designed to be retrofitted to existing vessels and new builds. Comprehensive engineering support and advice is available from Wavefront to support installation and commissioning.

General

Design