Smartcom Software's TeamSurv Help Keeps Bottoms Clean

Online, April 8, 2014 (Newswire.com) - SeaFront is a four year project, part funded by the EU's FP7 research programme, developing anti-fouling paints that are more efficient and also less harmful to the environment. International Paint (part of Akzo Nobel) are the paint manufacturer in the project, backed up by a bevy of universities and research institutes developing the new technologies. To test the paints, as well as International's own test facilities there are a variety of end users, encompassing ships and small craft, offshore installations and fish farms.

Smartcom is providing environmental data for the trials, with the TeamSurv system being used to log data from the vessels' instruments together with additional environmental sensors, supported by satellite imagery. This gives the tecchies information on the water conditions such as temperature, light levels, salinity and acidity, as well as the speed of the vessel, to help them assess the growing conditions for fouling. This is a significant advance on previous trials, where there has not been any significant environmental monitoring. It also shows the flexibility of the TeamSurv system to extend from measuring depths to being a general purpose means of gathering environmental data from a variety of sources. The ships and small craft, and the support boats for the fixed installations, will also generally be contributing to the collection of depth data, that remains as the primary focus of TeamSurv.

Tim Thornton, managing both Smartcom Software's involvement in SeaFront and the TeamSurv project, says "This project shows the flexibility of TeamSurv in being used to measure and collect a wide variety of data from seagoing vessels. As well as its initial focus on measuring depth, it is just as suited to any other environmental monitoring activity".

Background information:
SeaFront is a 4 year research project, part funded under the EU's FP7 Oceans of Tomorrow call, with a budget of Ђ11.2M. Coordinated by the Dutch Polymer Institute, it has 19 participants from 8 countries across the EU. It aims to develop a next-generation antifouling paint that will reduce vessel resistance (and so CO2 emissions through using less fuel) through less fouling, and also not leach into the water any material that is not bio-degradable.

Smartcom Software is an SME specialising in marine data applications. They were coordinator of the previous EU FP7 project that developed TeamSurv, and have since continued and further developed the project. A short piece made by the BBC can be seen here.

Web sites:
www.seafront-project.eu
www.smartcomsoftware.co.uk
www.teamsurv.eu
Contact details:
Tim Thornton
tt@smartcomsoftware.com
+44 (0)7985 927376