MULTHY, a Long-Range RTsys Recorder

The new acoustic recording system from the RTsys company synchronizes 16 hydrophones for improved range and recording quality while still controlling cost and energy consumption. The MULTHY system will be available at the beginning of 2019.

The MULTHY recording system can hear up to 4 times further, thanks to its 16 acquisition channels. MULTHY has a listening surface 16 times larger than an RTsys RESEA recorder, which can only accept up to 4 hydrophones.

MULTHY is a system made up of a recorder coupled to an acoustic antenna (linear, flat or geometric) equipped with 16 omnidirectional hydrophones. The system is less than 20m long and can be launched by 2 people from a light boat. The multiple hydrophones, in combination with digital processing, reduce noise and therefore improve signal quality. The equipment can record below the marine background noise over a frequency range up to 100 kHz.

A new circuit board

The success of this challenge essentially rests on a modification of the SDA (Synchronous Data Acquisition) circuit board which is at the heart of all RTsys products. While maintaining an identical format and a power consumption that is still under control, the new version SDA-416 has considerable calculating power and 4 times the functionality of the prior version.

MULTHY is intended for acoustic engineers and operators using consultants. With 16 hydrophones, the user can record over the same area as 4 RTsys RESEA recorders, while reducing costs, or add other sensors to the system, for example multi-parameter sensors. In common with the other RTsys products, all of the raw data is stored in the device and can be retrieved at the end of the mission.