Catching the winds of change through automation, quality and

comprehension

Authors

Deborah Febres Urdaneta, Support Manager QPS at Fredericton, Canada

Now starting her 6th year at QPS, Deborah is leading the Support Team of QPS west. Prior to joining QPS,

she was working as a GIS consultant for Tamarack Geographic, which rounds her with 15 years of

experience with geospatial and geomatics solutions. She holds a MSc in Marine Resource Management

from the University of Rimouski and a BSc in Marine Biology and Oceanography from Universidad Simón

Bolívar.

Rian Brak, Support Manager QPS at Zeist, Netherlands

After 5 years working for QPS, he leads the Support Team of QPS East. Rian has 14 years of solid

surveying experience. He started as an Assistant operator Royal Dutch Navy, Submarine Division and

then made it through many different marine geomatics surveys with offshore requirements when

working as a Senior Hydrographic Surveyor for Deep BV. Rian has a Category B certificate as

Hydrographic Surveyor from STC – Rotterdam.

Abstract

Hydrographic-based projects focusing on offshore wind farms (OWF) pose unique challenges at every

stage of the survey workflow. Acquisition requires integration of multiple sensors including, but not

limited to, vessel-mounted multibeam with backscatter, towed sidescan sonar, towed sub-bottom

profilers and towed magnetometers. Projects requirements often specify concurrent data collection

posing installation, timing and positioning challenges. Post-processing requires users to process, review

and, if necessary, correct, enormous multi-variant data sets requiring frequent QA/QC checks. Surveyors

wish to automate this and other related processes more. Furthermore, data fusion across these

temporally and spatially-variant data sets is critical for proper analysis in order to aid decision-making.

Throughout the process, stakeholders need to communicate to each other, even if they have different

backgrounds and/or project objectives. The question then is posed, how does the surveyor

communicate with stakeholders, facilitate decisions and feed adjustments back into the survey

workflow.

The answers are found in the innovations in the QPS workflow brought about through the merger of

complementary technologies both internal and external to the company itself. To minimize risk,

maximize product throughput and streamline the decision-making processing, this working environment

has been created to be seamlessly linked at every stage throughout the project lifecycle. It is powerful

enough to handle complex integrations & data acquisition, automated to reduce mistakes and yet

simple at critical steps to provide familiarity and clear understanding for stakeholders. This is done in

such a manner that also minimizes training costs, streamlines survey operations and simplifies complex

processes. In addition, at every stage of the project, analysis may take place within the same

environment that also enhances, delineates and prepares the data to be usable by decisions-makers. In

a technological world of easy responsiveness and sharing, a simple yet data-rich and robust integration

through presentation that speaks on its own is very desirable.

This paper demonstrates a series of tools that are seamlessly linked from acquisition to presentation,

and that ease decision-making for hydrographic data related to the OWF market. This is accomplished

through automation, quality integration/ acquisition, the reduction of human error, and intuitive

comprehension. Regardless of a person’s background, QPS solutions are aligned to work together to

enhance the capacity of all team members involved in a wind farm project by facilitating fluent

workflows from teams through all project stages.

The Change

Renewable resources for energy generation have the attention of many nations and markets in hope

and realization of alternatives to non-renewable hydrocarbon sources. The biggest changes

are witnessed with the marine renewable energy installations of Offshore Wind Farms, having the

highest deployment rate (Quandt et al, 2017). In the last three decades marine Offshore Wind Farms

(OWF), have shown significant growth despite significant higher costs related to their land or on-shore

counterparts (Vagiona & Kamilakis, 2018). This has been attributed to higher productivity and efficiency

for energy capture over time, as well as lower socioeconomic and environmental impacts (Azzellino et

al, 2013).

The uncertainties related to offshore work have the heaviest cost for this marine renewable option, and

they concentrate in the stage of installation and maintenance which account for 30-35% of totals, with

the rest of the cost being associated with site investigation and planning, operations and

decommissioning (Quandt et al, 2017). It might seem obvious but the uncertainties of working offshore

are worth stating: weather conditions are not as predictable and have a much higher impact to offshore

operations than those on land as well as presence of marine mammals that stull operations. There are

some aspects that can be predicted, but it is not just if weather is favorable for the humans, but also for

the equipment to be used. Periods of good weather present a window of opportunity to do the

maximum and best work possible during that time, but this must be very tightly and meticulously

planned. Planning takes time, and at time of operation, the degree to which communications are

effective during the process have a direct impact on overall OWF costs. The understanding of how

to proceed from site planning, installation, operations and maintenance and decommission, can still be

improved. Europe has been leading now with 30 years of experience in the life cycle processes of OWF,

which provides opportunity to learn valuable lessons.

The OWF commercial industry and the research communities are attempting to provide answers in

different ways: the complete design and planning for the OWF prior to commencing any operations,

vessel fleet optimizations, communications processes models between stakeholders and the parties

involved in all of the stages and within a particular stage itself. Each method serves to make OWF

operations as economically viable as possible, by reducing costs and becoming more effective in all of

the life cycle stages. Our goal with this work is to inform and show that the positive changes towards

harnessing OWF renewable energy and its interdependency with the marine geomatics surveying world

are well known and established, with critical identified elements. We also seek to provide examples to

follow from Europe that can greatly benefit the nascent industry in the Americas, as well as to look into

the future of what such industry is ready to benefit from recent technological advances.

Stages of an Offshore Wind Farm

A OWF life cycle has several stages. The Ulstein Group (2016) and The Netherlands Enterprise Agency

(2016) define 5 stages: Conception and Planning for development, Substructure Installation, Installation

and Commission, which are followed by Operations and Maintenance to Decommission or potential

of repowering (the refurbishing and replacing with new wind turbines, if a site has proven to be ideal for

exploitation (Topham and McMillan, 2016)). In each one of these stages there is potential for marine

geomatics survey work, with different objectives: bathymetric, geotechnical, Unexploded Ordnance

(UXO) survey, dredging, cable lay, cable depth of burial, precise positioning, seabed characterization,

obstruction being the most common. More detail about each stage is provided below:

• Planning and Development: Site investigation desktop study surveys of the area for selectivity

assessment and suitability. Meteorological survey and area recognition geotechnical surveys

also take place. During this stage, commissioning of the site for development is also addressed,

as are complete site investigations by the parties involved.

• Substructure Installation: In-depth hydrographic, geotechnical, obstruction reviews and

corridor suitability work is done. Obstructions and debris must be addressed by different teams

and/or organizations and also be dealt with by dredging the area or working the seafloor to be

suitable for the next stages and actual installation of substructure. After foundations and

substructures are installed, there is a post-survey process to ensure adequate positioning of all

substructures involved.

• Installation & Commission: Turbines and other non-substructure installations take place. Part of

the installation process is also related to installing the export cable, switch box, and the

infield cable lay. Each process requires rigorous surveying. Cable installations also require

detailed planning and high-precision positioning. At this stage, Environment Impact Assessments

also take place and likely require survey information for certain parts of their reports.

• Operations and Maintenance: During the operations and maintenance stage, foundation

inspections are scheduled and regularly done. Cable laid and depth of burial for all the corridors

are also constantly inspected as cables are prone to be exposed. Scour protection and

assessments are part of routine maintenance.

• Decommission & Repowering: For decommissioning, it is usual for tower substructure be to

extracted and/or cut. Final surveys are done for establishing seafloor conditions. Additional

environmental impact assessments may also be needed. If repowering is considered, there will

be additional surveys required, and substructures are assessed depending on how it will be

repowered, whether it is the same equipment, or new equipment deemed more suitable and

effective. This is congruent with seabed leases almost twice as long as the life cycle of the farm

as estimated at tender (Tophan and McMillan, 2016).

Figure 1. Fledermaus Objects for different deliverables of Desktop Surveys needed for planning OWF. The

five images represent bathymetric data, sidescan sonar data, magnetic field surface, geomorphological,

and subbottom data.

In each one of the stages, there are marine geomatics surveys, however most of the time such processes

are now complemented with many more elements. The typical textbook hydrographic survey example

of a multibeam and sidescan with positioning and inertial systems are now much more complex. It

includes a sub-bottom profiler, magnetometer(s), USBL, altimeters, DVL-ADCP, a gyro, angle sensors,

even a total station and sensors to be able to manage these additional instruments in congruence. For

example, as depicted in Table 1, for the Planning and Development stage, the site investigation desktop

study surveys are done and they require much of the equipment listed in the table. The initial

morphodynamic characteristics, ordnance risk assessment surveys, archaeological assessments,

geophysical followed by geotechnical, and meteorology and oceanographical studies are critical and will

have a heavy weight in site selection aside of wind assessments. For the actual installation stage, there

will be more rigorous reconnaissance surveys needed. Specific assessments are detailed in the next

stages, whether that would be for a substructure installation or an inner-grid cable lay. Site assessment

and desktop study investigations target the whole area of the OWF prior to structure installations, and

more detailed surveys take place. A pre-installation geophysical survey for each structure installation

site is performed. Pre and post surveys for seabed preparation such as dredging and rock laying

operations are done, as needed. There is also required a post survey to ensure correct positioning of all

elements: substructures, mattresses, cables and protection.

Marine geomatics surveying plays its most important role during the maintenance and operations

stages, to assess seafloor dynamics and the impact in scours for the substructure foundations. This also

holds true for the installation of the supporting grid of the OWF composed of export and infield cables.

Higher resolution surveys for corridor surveys for assessment are now a must, as well as additional

requirements for already active grids. The restrictions and regulations that these surveys need to

comply with continuous evolving products as deliverables. UXO surveys are done, and ordnance risks are

assessed (Gresty, 2019), and the details of such surveys have evolved greatly in the last 10 years.

Overall, this represents massive changes for the marine geomatics surveying industry in the last 15

years, from the aid to Navigation hydrographic surveys to the complexity of the OWF surveys taking

place now, which is far greater. There is a need to respond to different demands from high growing data

collections, higher quality deliverables, and continue to obtain knowledge about the OWF.

Table 1. Processes that are part of the OWF stages, the associated survey types or objectives for each,

and the equipment used to achieve them.

From all the stages, it is clear and understandable how intricately dependent the entire OWF life cycle is

on marine geomatics surveying. As such, OWF can benefit directly from the technological advances that

are part of the marine geomatics community. There are solutions ready and available to the market in

commercial bases that are well established for this purpose, QPS software and its workflows being one

of them. The OWF industry has a need for efficiency gains in the many aspects related to all of its stages,

and there are significant costs related to marine geomatics survey activities. One of the key elements

identified is effective planning from the communications around operations and processes related to

any of the activities tied to a mobilization to an OWF. QPS proposes solutions that can help to reduce

costs while also creating a common language for added efficiencies for the parties involved based on

quality first, from acquisition to product deliverables and the presentations of such.

Old World Vs. New World

Wind power on the order of 18.8 GW was estimated to have been produced globally in 2017, with

nearly 84% sourced in Europe (Wind Europe, 2019). Europe aims to reach 20% of its energy needs

produced by renewable sources by 2020 (Quandt et al, 2017; Vagiona & Kamilakis, 2017). The statistics

published by Wind Europe (2019), indicate that 14% of the European Union energy consumed in 2018

was provided by wind power (that is 2% higher than the previous year). Furthermore, there are

optimistic scenarios that 28.2% of the energy demand can be provided by wind by 2030, and the way to

attain that objective is mainly through growth of OWF (Halvorsen-Weare et al, 2013). The largest OWF is

now located in the Irish Sea, the Walney Extension. It was installed in 2018, with 87 turbines to harness

wind energy (McCarthy, 2019). There are 4,543 offshore producing wind turbines in Europe to

date. Installation of the first OWF, Vindeby, Denmark was in 1991, and its decommissioning commenced

in 2016. Yttre Stengrud was the first OWF dismantled after more than a decade of operations (Topham

and McMillan, 2016).

Figure 2. Life Cycle Stage of the Offshore Windfarms and their state in Europe and America.

The United States of America has a very high potential for OWF, of 2,058 GW if developed with the

possibility of having 86 GW to feed part of the grid by 2050 if current efforts remain at steady pace. In

sharp contrast to Europe, North America has only one OWF currently operational, which is off of Block

Island in the State of Rhode Island. It went online in 2016 and produces 30 MW with five turbines. There

are however 12 commercial leases in progress (American Wind Energy Association, 2019). In December

of 2018, the leases were auctioned for record-breaking amounts to energy companies and with the bid

amounts being a clear indication of the great interest in OWF development in the U.S. (Dlouhy, 2018).

The leases encompassed approximately 390,000 acres offshore of Massachusetts, with more projects

announced along the Atlantic Coast offshore of Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Virginia (Hill ,2018). For

Latin America, any prospects to develop OWF are currently in conceptions. Most of the initial

investments for development in Europe and North America were heavily subsidized by governments. In

the Latin American case, it might be even cost effective to compete with non-renewable resources,

however the focus seems to be for land projects and not marine renewables (Citi report, 2018).

Case Studies

To understand how marine geomatics solutions are currently in use to serve OWF two case studies

within QPS clients that were established. One with an European client and another with a North

American client. The approach was mainly to have an overview of their workflow and service that they

provide to OWF.

Bibby Hydromap

Bibby Hydromap was established in 1997 and is a leading contractor for marine surveys in the United

Kingdom and Europe. They are actively involved in many of the OWF related surveys in the UK. They

have conducted hydrographic survey work in support of OWFs commissioned by Scottish Power

Renewables. Two examples of these are the geophysical and UXO surveys on the proposed sites to

ensure to have identified items that could pose a risk to construction operations. These surveys had as

objectives: obtain bathymetry, morphology and features across the site, identify hazards that could

impair the installation phase and identify any objects that could potentially be UXO.

For a different job from the summer of 2018, Innogy Renewables UK Ltd commissioned a depth of burial

survey along each of the infield cables on the Galloper Offshore Wind Farm. The objectives, still in line

with supporting the OWF: Determine the depth of burial, assess the level of scour protection, identify

any areas of cable exposure or free span and investigate the surrounding seabed to track changes to the

environment.

Bibby Hydromap are industry leaders in seabed survey. They base their work in Quality and Innovations,

which are backed by QPS products within others. Their typical workflow for these surveys encompasses

using Qinsy for acquisition of the data in two options: providing input navigation to some sensors (for

accurate positioning) and also for acquisition data of other sensors (such as the MBES). The workflow is

depicted in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Typical equipment and systems interfaced with Qinsy for Bibby Hydromaps OWF survey

workflows.

Alpine Ocean Seismic Survey

Alpine Ocean Seismic Survey, established in 1957, has a long history of working with multidisciplinary

groups offshore, such include geophysical, geotechnical, hydrographic, oceanographic, environmental,

marine wildlife and positioning services. Since their founding by a group of Lamont Doherty scientists 61

years ago, Alpine has worked on thousands of marine survey projects worldwide. Alpine maintains its

company headquarters in Norwood, New Jersey.

Alpine’s project involvement often starts at the planning/permitting stages and, depending on the

project type, runs through the desk top study, field acquisition, delivery of reports and high-quality

marine cadastre data, construction monitoring and ongoing maintenance and inspection phases. This

capability is critical to ensure accountability, proper data integration and cross checking throughout a

project’s life cycle and been involved in all of the site investigation surveys for desktop studies for the

planning and development state on East coast of USA Figure 4).

Figure 4. OWF Planning and Development related surveys sites completed by Alpine Ocean Seismic

Survey.

Alpine’s workflows are supported by the main QPS software applications. They rely heavily on Qinsy for

accurate positioning and ability to conduct complex surveys, at best quality, cost efficiently, with the

main advantage being the ability to acquire and log data for all systems at the same time with the same

georeferencing and timing. See Figure 4.

Figure 5. Alpine Seismic survey equipment and systems interfaced with Qinsy and post-survey use of

Qimera and Fledermaus for creation of OWF deliverables.

Critical Factors

Reliability

The nature of work for an OWF is that there are short notice windows of opportunities to do work. To be

effective and efficient, reliability in all aspects of the job is critical, from the team members, to the

equipment, and also to the software that allows the management of and interconnects of the

equipment. The workflows in support of OWF, as mentioned before, are noted for their stringent and

multifaceted requirements. Clients often need, at minimum, multibeam bathymetry and backscatter,

side scan sonar, magnetometers, and sub bottom profiling for the types of surveys mentioned above for

the various stages of an OWF. From our case studies, and from other QPS clients, it is clear that there

are many different ways QPS applications are used, because they are meeting different survey

objectives and requirements from positioning, tug and tension management, and cable installations to

post-installation bathymetric surveys to ensure accurate positioning of all structures and cables. Most

QPS clients reported commonality for their workflow: all instruments are interconnected through Qinsy

as a controller package, positioning provision for other sensors, and acquisition package for most (if not

all) of the equipment, while also providing the navigation while at sea (Figure 6). JB you can

georeferenced all these sensors in real-time, you can process and grid the majority (including

magnetometer) to enable real-time QA. Just logging it is not good enough, you need to see it in real-

time to ensure your data is good. It’s very expensive to have to come back.

For reducing costs related to surveying, acquisition of all such sensors is typically the aim on each line of

ship data, and is in addition to the ancillary data collection of navigation, motion, sound speed, all at the

same time. Even in the event of unexpected challenges related to acquisition, it is imperative that at

minimum there is still inflow of data collected and positioning provided for the instruments. This is

because during the acquisition of the multiple sensors required for OWF surveying, unplanned

stoppages in data acquisition typically result in rerunning the entire line, with the re-acquisition of data

for each sensor, even those which did not experience any problems. This is done for data management

and documentation purposes alone, as it is considered imperative to have consistent filenames and

time-tags for sensor-specific filenames, and 1:1 ratios of all lines of sensor acquisition, rather than to

maintain multiple line segments for reacquired lines not started anew. The simultaneous collection of

data from a multitude of sensors further underscores the importance of software stability during

acquisition. Software reliability always has had a direct translation to time and money saved through

efficient ship operations and not needing to rerun lines, but considering the multi-sensor acquisition

required for OWF surveying, the importance is even greater.

Figure 6. Monitors of different Qinsy displays and windows showing state of operations for different

components and equipment while working online for a survey.

Quality

Quality assurance and reliability in the data collected is an important aspect since each data set

collected will be the foundation of work for the next stage of the job. If a survey for obstruction

assessment does not catch a potential threat for the job of the next stage, it can cause large delays or

problems which can increase costs very quickly. The quality of the process and data are

what guarantees cost-efficiency for each one of the stages, due to the dependency between all of the

stages in the lifecycle of an OWF. If poor quality data is collected early on, it will continue to impose a

tax through complications in all downstream processes that rely on the data. Poor quality data can

continue to cost money long after it is collected.

General know-how of the surveyors doing the various types of surveys has a significant impact on

quality. Knowing your workflow, your equipment and how to ensure that you do a good job from the

start of the survey will allow the team to provide the best results in the first go-round. This will save

time from attempting to fix problems in post-processing, if possible, or even in the next stage surveys to

support the OWF.

QPS users have made clear that the ability to have one software application doing all multi sensor

positioning, navigation, filtering, I/O and providing workaround for the sensor data recording and

registering computations for all elements needed, is a great benefit. The acquisition process can have

good results because of the quality of instruments and systems used and how the data collection is

managed and handled by the software. From Alpine, we hear great success using the filter solutions to

smooth out navigation provided to the connected systems that support their bathymetric surveys, such

as the magnetometers and subbottom profiler.

Aside of ensuring that data collection is done in the best way possible, when familiarity is achieved in

the process, there is awareness of what will have an impact in the end result. Surveyors learn what they

can recover from, in a potential Quality Control and Assurance stage. After you manage this, the goal is

to do it as fast and effectively as possible, with little opportunity for human error, as mundane tasks are

streamlined by the automated areas of the packages. For such an example: Bibby Hydromap, stands by

the philosophy of collecting good data the first time, making the absolute best use of acquisition time. If

it is necessary to make changes in post-processing, and understanding their workflow well and how to

overcome some minor issues in post-processing, they can accomplish it easily with use the use of the

processing state management in Qimera. The processing state management tracks which lines are

affected by changes in the processing settings, and all required adjustments are then performed with a

single-click. The correct sequence of post-processing actions based on processing settings is guaranteed,

for Bibby and all other Qimera users, and this occurs in an automated fashion after making any

adjustments to the processing settings. This alleviates the user of the requirement to design and

sequence their post-processing actions themselves, thus streamlining the workflow, and completely

eliminating any errors that might occur otherwise as a result of unnecessary or incorrect manual actions.

Finally, quality must be assured in the finished deliverables. Data volumes in the last 30 years have

increased dramatically. From modern multibeam to magnetometers. UXO surveys now scale up to 8

magnetometers and use gradiometers to find small targets. Modern multibeam bathymetry

requirements for OWF has very high grid resolution and very high sounding density requirements.

Resolution could be as high as 25 cm, and sounding density requirements were reported as 100

soundings per grid cell, often used currently to target assessments (New Zealand HO Standards, 2016),

which further stresses adequate data management and big data volume handling. Multibeam data is

often required delivery as point clouds, meshes, in addition to gridded bathymetry, thus must be fully

inspected to remove outliers. The visualization, inspection and analysis of all of these deliverables in

conjunction is possible when working with our software package, Fledermaus (Figure 7). This is a

package that will allow all final products to be closely inspected by clients to ensure requirements are

met on a non-interference basis. Once accepted, the deliverables yield the bathymetric and geophysical,

morphological, archeological, and even cable assessments or any other context required for subsequent

stage, or continual monitoring.

Figure 7. Fledermaus products result from scour analysis to submerged monopile windmill structures.

Courtesy of Port of London Authority and MMT UK

Partnering

Partnering elements for better workflows is a critical factor for improved efficiency for working with the

marine geotechnical surveying aspects related to OWF. The level of effort and framework needed to get

an OWF in production is not small, and involves several different stakeholders. From our clients and the

other examples in Europe, this is clear: government agencies, consortiums and different contractors are

all part of the process. For the case of marine geomatics efforts related to OWF, partnering also affects

responses to activities for each stage. Various clients have different configurations of equipment and

packages, with the main goal of reaching optimization of cost and efficiency. This has been done through

a trial and error basis of marrying technologies out of necessity, even if initially the solutions were not

working together efficiently, over time the integration has been achieved in response to industry needs.

Other times, that integration was crafted from the outset to provide turnkey solutions for particular

sections or stages. By partnering with others, the survey companies get the reliability and quality they

expect and the end clients receive deliverables that meet or exceed requirements. The requirements for

OWF, already stringent, likely will continue to evolve in the future, with increased accuracy, resolution,

and sounding density requirements, resulting in heavier overall data volumes. This was evidenced in the

UXO surveys in the last 10 years.

Thus, taking advantage of streamlined, integrated solutions is critical to keep up with ever-evolving

industry demands. See Figure 8.

Figure 8. Generic workflow diagram QPS, ESRI Chesapeake Technologies and Geosoft.

Partnering with other organizations is accomplished by QPS with other vendors, while also our own

clients have important partnerships at different stages. Bibby Hydromap provides support on the

Bathymetric and DOB surveys, while we have other clients best-suited for installation processes. Many

of our clients are from Northern Europe region which supports many of the operations and surveys

related to OWF. Because of the mass amounts users that have pushed our applications in such ways that

have molded part of the evolution of the packages to their needs, covering many unique requirements,

and serving different key survey operations for OWF.

Common Framework

As mentioned above, each stage has different survey types in order to achieve various objectives.

However, our clients have kept the same common framework, using Qinsy, for acquisition from various

sensors, positioning, navigation, and cable installations. As such, all of the parties involved are familiar

with the solutions, and this facilitates communication to achieve greater efficiency. Even when engaged

in different mobilization efforts, the common framework of Qinsy as the dashboard control point for the

various activities that occur each day is very beneficial. It allows for rapid planning and operations in

order to make the best use of time in the window of opportunity given by weather and other elements

that are out of the human control (See Figure 9).

Figure 9. Common framework Workflow for software applications from QPS and typical equipment used

in OWF marine geomatics surveys to product deliverables.

Clients get familiar with the way deliverables need to be provided, from job to job they know how to

address such item with a familiar application. Additionally, clients requesting the jobs are now more

knowledgeable, which explains the increased complexity of deliverables. Clients are now onboard

vessels to ensure the quality of the deliverables, and they are able to see firsthand the end results.

Depending on the client, it can be a 'familiar' remote display from Qinsy, or a full Fledermaus scene with

the freshly acquired data viewed together with data already collected from various sensors. Such a

combined scene offers opportunity to make observations and connections among different data types

not otherwise realized unless viewed in a combined 3D space. This data integration provides optimal

situational awareness, and from it a report utilizing spatial time notes for 3D presentation can be

produced and delivered in a matter of minutes, providing project status and rich context to the client

representatives both onboard and onshore.

The vision that QPS has to "know the ocean", is shared by most of the hydrographic world. We achieve

this through great value in the integration of QPS products, which allows for the preservation of data

formats throughout the workflow, streamlining workflows and eliminating errors experienced during the

data conversation and loss of metadata otherwise necessary. Because our product line covers the entire

workflow, from data acquisition to processing and analysis, the value chain in the integration extends

over all these same steps. However, though QPS software is designed to work very well together to

achieve this value in integration, we also ensure modularity and that our software is compatible with

major industry formats such that any of our modular components can be coupled with solutions from

other vendors. This allows for easy connections into supported workflows from other software vendors.

QPS strives to support either method for client flexibility, either those wishing to maximize the value in

integration, or to configure their own custom workflow. This could be even extended further to other

disciplines that do work in the stages related to OWF, such as environmental impact, oceanography and

more. There is still much to learn about the impacts of the whole process of an OWF (Azzelino et al,

2013). Experts mention that knowledge and understanding of the full scope of technological impact

effects of OWF are still immature (Azzellino et al, 2013) as there is just 30 years of history, and the socio-

economic and environmental impacts of OWF are yet to be fully understood.

Looking forward

Currently, the Borssele OWF in the Netherlands has been deemed a designated site for test studies in

hopes for the advancement of all technologies associated with an OWF. Thus, it is being called an

innovations site (RVO, 2016). This allows a laboratory stage process for trials, where new organizations

can run trials to evaluate leading edge technology. The OWF industry will certainly benefit from the

trickle down technology from the marine geomatics surveying industry, to improve processes for cost

efficiency, and overcome the future obstacles encountered in production. The impacts and changes that

are happening need to be studied and monitored. This industry will certainly benefit from:

1. Proper use and integration of the currently available tools, such as QPS software. This will

improve the communications between surveyors and clients when supporting OWF and

producing deliverables.

2. Automated Survey Vessels (ASVs) and Automated Unmanned Vessels (AUVs), which are rapidly

growing segments in the market. ASV/AUVs are very suitable for usage in monitoring processes

during the operations of an OWF. The biggest benefit for AUV and ASV is affordability and

accessibility for surveys economically and spatially. This will be especially true for the

maintenance surveys that always need to take place.

3. The Remote operations and control of such fleets of AUV and ASV would be desirable. The

advancements of the AUV and ASV technology have massive potential for improvement in

vessel fleet optimization in terms of operational efficiency and personnel requirements. There

are auto-survey functions that allow adjustments in line navigation based on real-time

processed bathymetry, guaranteeing the correct overlap and no data gaps.

4. There are many different ways that Artifical Intelligence (AI) will impact OWF operations, with

the most noteworthy for this discussion being predictive maintenance. Instead of surveying and

inspecting with a calendar schedule, predictive models will use diverse inputs to optimize when

and where to survey and/or when to take preventative measures. This further raises the benefit

of multi-sensor surveys with a focus on precision and well-integrated data sets.

5. Continued progress on trends towards increased resolution and sounding density

6. To better serve AUV deployments, sonars will need to operate with lower power, continue to

get smaller in size and also get lower in cost

7. Mission specific operational modes, tailored to mapping needs of OWF.

8. Further refinement of existing sonar data modes to meet needs of OWF, namely backscatter and

water column imagery

9. Improvements in adaptive sonar adjustment in response to changing survey conditions

10. The roles in the industry will shift accordingly and the knowledge and subjects will shift with it.

The roles for the marine geomatics hydrographic surveyor, that should not undermine the

comprehension of all processes happening at a particular survey, may monitor now a vessel

fleet of many surveys happening at once.

11. Data sharing is one aspect that is important and affects the downstream and upstream work

when dealing with OWF. Clients are the data proprietors, and one OWF can have several stake

holders and different contractors doing work.

12. A big part of data management is connectivity, with a lot of innovation coming with wireless

data network improvements, such as 5G. Bandwith plays an important role, as cloud processing

is useless if you cannot get that data to the cloud. In the near term hybrid clouds, with a lot of

processing still done locally will be standard.

Conclusion

With considerable attention placed on renewable energy worldwide, OWFs are very in-focus and will

continue to be in the foreseeable future. Companies that wish to pursue OWF work must be well-

prepared, as each stage of the OWF life cycle requires considerable effort from several groups that must

be well-coordinated. In particular, hydrographic survey deliverables required in support of OWF are

considerably more multifaceted and with much higher standards than many typical marine surveying

jobs. Case studies examined here from Bibby Hydromap and Alpine Ocean Seismic Survey underscore

the importance of software reliability and integrated systems in order to optimize operational efficiency,

which is further improved by strategic partnering among vendors. Quality and capabilities are similarly

important in order to meet the myriad requirements of the OWF stages. QPS software tools are utilized

in each of these stages, by those groups highlighted in the case studies and many more operating in

support of OWF installations, in order to meet the critical factors required for success which were

emphasized in this paper. With continued focus on autonomous solutions, remote operations, data

sharing and more, QPS strives to continue to lead the way as a software provider in support of OWF

installations, and will be pleased to see this valuable form of renewable energy continue to grow

worldwide.

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