21 Degrees in engineering, science and management followed, lining him up for a career in which taking measurements and handling data have been central. “For my entire career, I’ve been involved with instrumentation of one form or another,” he says. “The front end of a sonar is different because it deals with sound rather than light or other phenomena, but once you have turned that into an electrical signal, processing it is the same sort of task.” However, turning the company around demanded people skills rather than addressing any shortcomings of a solid and in-demand product range. The task centred on what he calls a “charm offensive”, conducted to re-establish and nurture relationships with sales partners around the world, particularly in Asia, addressing their concerns and reinforcing after-sales support. GeoAcoustics offers a range of underwater sensors, including sidescan sonar, interferometric sonar and sub-bottom profilers, all of which can be towed by or mounted on relatively small, uncrewed vehicles, including USVs and UUVs/AUVs. These systems are sold through a network of ‘channel partners’ spanning about 70 countries. “My role is predominantly to support them to make sure they have the information and tools they need to sell our products in their local markets,” Dowdeswell says. Most of the company’s work over the last few years has been the integration of the GeoSwath sonar onto USV platforms, including the Teledyne Z-Boat, the SeaFloor Systems Echo Boat, the OceanAlpha SL40, the Inception from Unmanned Survey Solutions, the SB 100 from GPA SeaBots and Martac Systems’ Mantas T12. “The use of USVs has opened up hydrographic surveying to a host of areas that previously were inaccessible to traditional survey vessels,” he says. The development of acoustic sensor technologies has also been affected by the demands of uncrewed vehicles, particularly smaller, battery powered machines with limited onboard energy. This has reduced the size of transducers and processing electronics to reduce their power demands. “In terms of physical size, there has also been a driver to make the transducers smaller to reduce drag on the vessel, and so prolong the time available to the vessels for surveys,” Dowdeswell says. Dr Richard Dowdeswell | In conversation The use of USVs has opened up hydrographic surveying to a host of areas that previously were inaccessible to traditional vessels Uncrewed Systems Technology | June/July 2024 GeoSwath 4 transducer, set on T-plate mount (left). The deck unit (right) houses the sonar electronics and a high-spec PC running the latest dedicated GS4 software (Image courtesy of GeoAcoustics)
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