@etienne Uffe did mention in one of the comments that “I think it is rather interesting what we we will have already this Spring!” So I wouldn’t put a scanning sonar past him or the company. He has a pretty good track record with making affordable side scan sonars. A LittleEye towfish with a scanning sonar on a BlueROV2 will be a very powerful combination for finding things in shallow water.
Paul, what are sonars like the Coda Octopus that give a vertical picture classed as?
I’m not sure but I’d guess it’s some sort of 3D multi-scanning sonar. Speaking of which I’ve been reading up on the Raymarine Axiom Realvision 3D. Looks like you can get a complete system for as low as $1,100.
FYI, Imagenex also offers Side Scanning Sonars that can be mounted onto an ROV:
any idea how much those run?
Hi guys and thanks for nice words. I did read this first now so sorry for late answers. We are right now not looking at scanning sonar. Some kind of FLS yes but not scanning. The current version that we have released is thought to be used as a live view SideScan. We use it for navigation. Drawback of having side scan as navigation is that it gives a picture of whats left and right of you while going forward. The major advantage is range. On the BlueROV2 even if it is a rather small platform it has proven it self to be course stable enough to give you very good picture even when using a swath of 70m. And this with a resolution and picture quality that is impossible to reach with a scanning sonar. We have made some short videos of how we are using the SS for navigating to a target. We used it for a while now and once you get a hang of how to use it it has been a great navigation tool. Combining this with a positioning system and our mosaic software will allow you to do so much more.
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So what is your launch date Uffe?
This is from his Facebook feed: Now our BlueROV2 SideScan is finally finished. A complete system with switch card, sonar electronics, a pair of 340kHz transducers, mounting brackets, penetrators and all necessary for assembly plus a software will be sold at the price of 30,000SEK / 3530USD. Book your system today. Shipping will start after Oceanology international 2018 in London 13-15th March. If You are there You are more than welcome to visit us in booth P553 /DeepVision
I will try to be at OI18 if I am not out on a survey 
Hi Kevin, noob here. How did you connect the Sonar to the Rov? Did you not need a shielded twisted pair?
Hi @Paddy1 ,
We connect scanning sonars to a spare twisted pair on the standard Fathom Tether and the power goes into the terminal blocks on the ROV. An RS485 to USB converter was used topside.
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for the swift response. We will give it a try on the sub.
Regards
