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13 Mar 12. Sonardyne launches Automatic Leak Detection Sonar (ALDS). Sonardyne International announced the launch of an Automatic Leak Detection Sonar (ALDS) at the Oceanology International Exhibition and Conference, London (stand G300). The Sonardyne designed and built product is an active sonar capable of detecting and localising deep water hydrocarbon leaks around offshore installations and pipelines soon after they develop allowing operators to respond immediately and accurately in the case of a leak. ALDS is designed to detect oil and gas leaks at significant ranges, allowing coverage of wide areas from a single sensor. Typically, in deep water, the system will detect gas leaks of 1bpd (barrel per day) at a range of 500m and live oil leaks of 10bpd at the same range. The system’s single subsea sensor offers 360 degree continuous coverage providing automatic, robust detection and localisation of any leak, followed by an alert after only tens of seconds of a leak developing. The deep water sonar works by projecting an optimised ultrasonic pulse of sound into the water and then listening for returns from the target, in this case hydrocarbons entering the water column. The algorithms used by the system to automatically detect a leak are based on the proven architecture processes used in Sonardyne’s maritime security sonars, which are field proven and best in class. The product has already has been demonstrated several times in shallow water and Sonardyne is in the process of undertaking deep water trials with an operator in the Gulf of Mexico. The sonar is linked to the surface platform via a fibre optic cable. Data is processed in real time at the surface using advanced software capable of discriminating and localising leaks from other potential sonar targets. ALDS does not require an expensive trained operator to adjust the sonar parameters, it has been designed to provide robust, reliable detection in all conditions without constant fine tuning.

14 Mar 12. The US Army and Boeing have completed flight testing of the
company’s newly developed advanced rotorcraft flight control system, Adaptive Vehicle Management System (AVMS) in Arizona, US. During the tests, conducted between 9 and 21 December 2011, a Boeing H-6 helicopter equipped with the AVMS conducted a series of seven separate test flights to demonstrate the system’s ability in adapting the flight controls to the aircraft’s flight condition, environment and pilot intent. Boeing AVMS programme manager James Dryfoos said the AVMS is able to process large amounts of information and communicate with the pilot through forces applied to the control sticks. Boeing Phantom Works Advanced Mobility director Steve Glusman said that many elements of the AVMS can be incorporated into the CH-47 Chinook and AH-64 Apache rotorcraft platforms, and could be a key capability in future Boeing aircraft including the Future Vertical Lift rotorcraft. A joint development project between the US Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD) and Boeing, the system delivers enhanced manoeuvrability and flight safety while reducing aircrew workload and overall operating costs. The fly by wire technology, which has been in development for two years, can also help the pilot landing in brown-out conditions in a desert by holding the aircraft’s attitude stable, even in severely-reduced visibility conditions. (Source: airforcetechnology.com)

13 Mar 12. Curtiss-Wright Controls Defense Solutions’ HPEC (High Performance Embedded Computing) Center of Excellence has conducted the first successful demonstration of OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED™) software running on its CHAMP-AV8 series dual 2nd generation Intel® Core™ i7 DSP module enabled with Gen2 Serial RapidIO (SRIO). Curtiss-Wright’s HPEC system can support over 3.7 Intel® AVX TFLOPS and 224 G