Achieving this requires different positioning technologies to work together seamlessly, providing reliable and independent references across a range of operating conditions.
Guidance Marine partnered with Sonardyne and Veripos to conduct a technology demonstration at Sonardyne’s Plymouth testing facility.
The trials brought together established and emerging positioning technologies to showcase a fully integrated reference sensor suite designed to support resilient operations in GNSS-challenged environments.
The demonstration validated how multiple independent positioning technologies can be combined within a single DP architecture, including new approaches to non-GNSS initialisation.
It showcased the interoperability of systems from multiple suppliers and demonstrated how resilient positioning can be delivered for future-ready operations, even when GNSS signals are unavailable, degraded or cannot be trusted.
Addressing the challenges of GNSS resilience requires collaboration across the industry.
By partnering with trusted technology leaders Sonardyne and Veripos, we brought together decades of positioning expertise and complementary technologies to demonstrate how an integrated, multi-sensor approach can help deliver reliable operations in increasingly complex operating environments.
Guidance Marine: A leading provider of position reference sensors for the offshore and maritime industries. Maintaining accurate, trusted vessel positioning through independent, resilient reference solutions.
Sonardyne: A global leader in underwater and marine technology, delivering innovative solutions for navigation, positioning and autonomy.
Veripos: Deliver GNSS solutions that provide precise, reliable and assured data for offshore and maritime. Its correction services support safe and efficient operations where accuracy and availability are critical.
Using data from Guidance Marine’s radar and a previously prepared survey of the operating area, DockLock continued to track the vessel and generate live latitude and longitude estimates after its GPS input was disconnected.
These estimates were integrated into the Sonardyne Fusion system using a standard marine positioning message format, where DockLock was displayed alongside the other position-reference solutions and used as an alternative position source.
The trials represented an important milestone in the product development journey of DockLock.
It was an opportunity to validate DockLock’s capabilities in a real-world environment, whilst demonstrating progress towards a future solution for GNSS-independent vessel positioning.
DockLock builds on Guidance Marine’s established expertise in high-precision position reference systems, using an existing high-resolution 24 GHz radar sensor to capture detailed images of the vessel’s surrounding environment.
These radar images are then compared against a previously recorded reference map, enabling the system to calculate the vessel’s position independently of GNSS.
The position information can be provided in multiple formats, including:
Position data is displayed through the DockLock user interface and can be delivered directly to vessel systems using either DP telegram formats or standard NMEA-compatible outputs, enabling straightforward integration with existing architectures.
By providing a high-accuracy position reference independent of GNSS, the technology could support a range of marine operations where reliable positioning is critical, including:
The demonstration provided an important step in showcasing how radar-based positioning can complement other independent references to create more resilient vessel positioning in an increasingly challenging GNSS environment.