RIASSUNTO
ABSTRACT
At the moment Finland is probably the only country in the world where the industry is strongly investing in underwater technology without national programs or government support. All activity is purely commercial.
The range of products - partly only developed, partly also built and delivered - includes oceanographic research vessels, research instrumentation, deep ocean machines, submersibles and total mining systems.
INTRODUCTION
There are two companies in Finland heavily involved in deep ocean technology.
One is Hollming Oy, a shipbuilding company, specialized in oceanographic research vessels. Ten years ago they decided to build up their own capability of instrumentation. Since then they have developed mapping systems, positioning systems, and total computer integration.
The other company is Rauma-Repola Oy, one of the largest enterprises in Finland. In the 1970's and early 1980's they built offshore drilling rigs and service units. But when the shipping, shipbuilding and offshore industry crisis was seen in the early 198's they decided to diversify in underwater technology: diving systems, underwater production systems, remotely operated vehicles, submersibles and deep sea applications.
As a result a large range of products for deep ocean activity is presently available in Finland.
DEEP OCEAN RESEARCH VESSELS
Large deep ocean research vessels with versatile instrumentation have been delivered mainly to the USSR Academy of Sciences. One of them is the 2600 ton R/V Academik Boris Petrov (fig. 1) delivered in 1984. Its research equipment consists of seismic system, multi-beam echo sounder, deep sea echo sounder, various bottom sampling devices, CTD/Rosette system, weather station and laboratory analyzers. The devices are integrated with navigation and computer systems using a local area network. Other similar research vessels are the 5500 ton Mstislav Keldysh and the 6600 ton Sergei Vavilov, the former being the ""flag ship"" of the research vessel fleet of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
The objective of the integration is to enhance the efficiency of the research vessel and to reduce the number of personnel required for routine measurements. The degree of automation has been increased by using a local area network to interface measuring devices with navigation and computers.
DEEP OCEAN INSTRUMENTATION
Three main areas of deep ocean instrumentation have been developed and built.
The first area is the multi-beam echo sounders for bathymetric mapping and bottom investigation. The latest version ECHOS XD measures 60 narrow 2 x 2 degree beams across the ship's track. The swath width is twice the water depth down to 6000 meters. Real time contour plots and postprocessed hydrographic maps give information e.g. of tectonics and vulcanism. Moreover, the system includes a separate monitor displaying the acoustic properties of the bottom exactly below the vessel. A block diagram of the two frequency (15 and 45 kHz) systems is shown in fig. 2.