Van Oord Uses iXblue's Subsea Positioning Solution for Offshore Wind Farm Work in France

Dutch marine installation services firm Van Oord has recently deployed iXblue's new LBL subsea positioning solution to conduct the installation of 190 offshore wind farm piles in the Bay of Saint-Brieuc, France.

"Already used on major Oil&Gas and Renewables projects, iXblue Canopus transponders, Ramses transceivers, and Delph Subsea Positioning Software have been used by Van Oord to conduct metrology operations. Those aimed to ensure the laid-out piles had been positioned as per the requested specifications," iXblue said.

Instant pile positioning verification was made possible by installing the Canopus LBL transponders on top of a centering frame which was placed on top of each of the pile that made up the wind turbine foundations. (3 piles per turbine). The Canopus transponders then measured and logged the distance separating them by sending acoustic interrogations to each other. The logged data was then transferred to the Ramses LBL transceiver and sent back to Delph Subsea Positioning global supervision software that generated reports from all received baselines, iXblue explained.

"Thanks to our global subsea positioning solution, Van Oord was able to retrieve highly accurate measurement data only 20 minutes after the Canopus transponders had been installed on the piles. This enabled the overall baseline measurement to be conducted in less than 3 hours for all four piles installed at the time,” explains Hans-Willem Deleeuw, Sales Manager at iXblue.

According to the company, iXblue LBL subsea positioning solution offers plug & play, easy to deploy and to operate systems. 

They can be used on multiple offshore applications such as metrology or ROV/AUV positioning and are easy to integrate into the existing pool of equipment thanks to their open protocols. 

"When used in combination with iXblue Inertial Navigation Systems, innovative SLAM and Sparse LBL modes can be used, deploying a reduced number of transponders, and thus enhancing operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness," iXblue said.

"The intrinsic qualities of our LBL solutions, together with the comprehensive remote training of Van Oord personnel, as well as 24/7 support from the iXblue teams made this wind farm metrology operation a real success.” Hans-Willem continues. “We would like to thank Van Oord for once again trusting our technology and are now looking forward to our next deep water subsea positioning project with them providing cost-effective LBL and sparse LBL operations.”