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Three years ago, MacArtney
announced that it had successfully
trialled EdgeTech's Buried Object
Sonar System (eBOSS) system on
its Focus ROTV. Called an
‘overnight sensation’ but in fact
taking 20 years to come to
fruition, this resulted in a number
of units being sold.
Since then, Edgetech has
continued development
vigorously. The latest iteration has
has been that engineers reduced
the resolution down to a one-
centimetre voxel.
EdgeTech was part of the 1995
development headed up by Dr.
Steven Schock at Florida Atlantic
University that started work on the
BOSS (Buried Object Scanning
Sonar). Around 2010, EdgeTech
completely took over and has
since redeveloped the entire
system.
The redevelopment
improvements include the entire
electronics package, PVDF
receivers, beamforming and
operating programs, as well as
interface software. The company
has now been commercially
offering the system for sale since
the start of 2025.
EBOSS
eBOSS is an advanced sub-
bottom sonar system capable of
penetrating the seabed to
accurately detect, locate, classify
and identify buried and partially
proud objects.
This low-frequency acoustic
imaging system provides data in
eBOSS
real-time for general survey
purposes such as cable and
pipeline depth-of-burial tracking
and route surveys. Data can also
be post-processed using synthetic
aperture sonar (SAS) processing
and beamforming to render
three-dimensional images of
buried objects.
The system utilises two
hemispherical low frequency (5-25
kHz) projectors providing optimal
resolution for 3D processing. It
can travel at speeds up to 4kts,
with survey swath widths typically
ranging from 20–60m depending
on the height the sonar is flown
off the bottom. Penetration
depths of 3m to over 10m can be
expected depending on sediment
type.
As part of EdgeTech’s extensive
line of Full Spectrum CHIRP sub-
bottom profiling sonar systems,
eBOSS was originally developed
Buried Anchor
for unexploded ordnance (UXO)
detection, including 81mm mortars,
155 mm howitzer projectiles and
smaller objects.
The system easily captures larger
items such as mine-like objects
(MLOs), obstructions, pipelines,
cables and other critical underwater
infrastructure.
“We've been working on it for a very
long time,” said Nick Lawrence,
International Business Development
Director. “We originally employed
our own internal software but soon
decided that this was not particularly
user-friendly, so we commissioned
Chesapeake to write the system
interface driver.”
“We leave post-processing to our
customers. eBOSS provides data
that customers are able to reprocess
as many times as they require.
Typical operations capture and view
data in real-time while the system
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processes it for 3D use at the 5cm
voxel resolution. If, however,
customers wish to obtain even
greater resolutions down to 1cm,
they are free to reprocess the
data.
“Currently, there are a number of
third-party developers working on
post processing packages. These
include Eiva, Ocean Geophysics,
DUG, Stratesea, and Chesapeake.
“About the time, we put it into
the hands of both Fugro and
Sulmara who both, independently
put it onto an Eiva Scanfish, and
took the data for processing. This
month, Eiva is debuting a new
eBOSS bolt-on wing for use with
ScanFish.
It is also now part of the Ashtead
pool where they have fabricated
and made available for hire, a
work class ROV sled. We have
also put it on several MacArtney
Focus 3s with great success.
“We are also working with a
number of UUV manufacturers,
Anduril, Terredepth,
Oceaneering, and Cellula for
example, to install it onto AUVs.
We expecting these to come to
market in 2026. Sulmara trialled it
a WAM-V from OPT.
“We want to make it a universal
system that can be mounted into
any work class ROV with power
and Ethernet. That has been our
focus in the final integration mile.
“Along the way, we have
discovered that ideally, we need
an ROTV or AUV or something
stable or something in which the
motion can be separated . At the
moment, it is not vehicle-agnostic
but that is what we are working
towards.
“We have spent an inordinate
amount of time with the
manufacturers such as Sulmara
and Fugro who are adept at
integration of external systems.
“We need to ensure that the INS
USB-L and everything else is
practically compatible. For
eBOSS to work, we require basic
information concerning the
The eBOSS system allows a plan
view and effectively, a side
elevation view of the target. This
can be used to look at popes/
cables or examine sunken ships
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motion and the vehicles exact
position.”
CHANGES
So what has changed since the
original integration with the
MacArtney vehicle was
covered?
“We have made a few minor
tweaks to the hardware,
although nothing significant,”
said Lawrence.
“The main area of change has
focussed on the processing,
benefitting from general
improvements in technology.
The system, for example,
mimics and draws from MRI
imaging techniques and has
even been displayed on MRI
viewing software.
“We have reached the stage
where we're starting to get
third party software companies
coming to us, offering their own
post processing software
packages. One recent example
occurred in Australia with
seismic interpretation
specialists DUG Technology but
Eiva also includes eBOSS in
their beta NaviSuite
programme and it is slowly
starting to catch a life of its
own.
Third party software not only
allows 3D renditions but also
things like continuous depth-of-
burial measurements,
automated target recognition
(ATR), and fusing sensor inputs
(side scans, magnetometers,
multibeams) for complete
pictures of what is buried.
The integration includes receiver
and projector geometry, ancillary
sensor input (DVL, INS, USBL) for
SAS processing and positioning
The system is being commercially
deployed. It is currently or soon to
be at work in US, Canada, North
Sea, Germany, Taiwan and others
“We have be able to image things like interiors of ships, cables
crossing pipelines and fibre optic cables as small as 24mm.”
Ghost shrimp tunnels
SONAR
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