Research Ready, Heriot-Watt University’s Seaeye Falcon Gets Smart with SeeByte’s CoPilot

SeeByte announces that Heriot-Watt University has successfully integrated CoPilot with their Seaeye Falcon 1256, an observation-class ROV.

With assistance from Heriot-Watt University’s Ocean Systems Laboratory personnel, the SeeByte team integrated and tuned the system to operate with a Teledyne RDI Workhorse Navigator 600 KHz DVL. The work was conducted over a two day period including testing in Heriot-Watt University’s wave tank. This configuration can be used with other Seaeye Falcon systems.

Professor Yvan Petillot, Head of Research at the Sensors, Signals, and Systems Institute, commented: “SeeByte’s CoPilot provides us a real-time input to their navigation and waypoint engine. This means we can deploy electric manipulators and develop coupled control algorithms as well as adaptive control routines. This is a fantastic resource for our PhD students. It will also add value to our colleagues across the road on the life sciences school, helping them conduct repetitive geo-located surveys.”

CoPilot is the world’s most advanced, easy-to-use, plug-and play software that makes piloting any ROV a much simpler task. CoPilot permits pilot controlled auto-transit and stop-and-hover, whilst providing automated sonar tracking and movement relative to a target. CoPilot is easily retrofitted to any ROV system, but is also available from the factory with VideoRay, Seatronics and SMD.