These include installations, in the Port of Melbourne and contracts awarded for Chevron (Barrow Island) and Port Hedland.
At Barrow Island off the coast of Western Australia, AMS Group (previously known as Australian Maritime Systems) won an order to upgrade the VTS system for Chevron’s Oil and Gas production activities.
Barrow Island is situated 30 miles Northwest off the Pilbara coast of Western Australia between Point Samson and Onslow. Barrow Island is Australia’s leading site for oil production and one of the largest sites for gas production.
Despite the presence of this oil and gas activity, Barrow Island retains Class A status as one of Australia’s finest nature reserves.
The radar selected for the Barrow Island project is the Kelvin Hughes patented SharpEye SBS-800 series
This was selected for a number of reasons. First, the need to conduct maintenance is a costly and logistical burden on the radar, and the previous magnetron systems would require frequent maintenance routines. Not only is the island remote, but it also requires complete self-sufficiency. SharpEye is a solid state radar meaning there is no magnetron and regular maintenance routines are not needed.
Second, the SBS-800 series features Doppler processing and enhanced pulse compression bringing clutter reduction, ie sea clutter removal without removing the targets of interest, such as shipping and smaller vessels in the area. This capability extends to all ranges, and with tanker mooring for loading of oil via a submarine pipeline from the Island storage tanks to the mooring 10 km East of the island, this greatly enhances the safety of vessel traffic operating in the area, where the sea state is known to be high the year round.
Shannon Hobbs, AMSG Chief Marketing Officer, said: “The Kelvin Hughes SharpEye SBS 800 series radar was an easy choice for AMSG when specifying a potential solution for Barrow Island, the combination of supreme performance, reliability and price point gave AMSG an edge in what is typically a complex environment.
“The Barrow Island radar installation is due to be completed by end of December , 2017 by AMSG and early field test results have been excellent,” he said.
At Melbourne, a similar requirement lead to a successful project completing in February, 2016, notably this time the SBS-900 series featuring two dual redundant X-Band SharpEye transceivers were selected.
The difference between the SBS-800 and 900 being the former locates the SharpEye upmast in the antenna rotator housing and the latter a few meters downmast on the tower in a self-contained environmentally isolated enclosure.
The key benefit is both systems, unlike magnetron-based units, do not require the usual additional infrastructure, such as a hut at the foot of the radar tower that requires air conditioning, lighting, etc, thereby significantly reducing integration costs.
In addition to the Doppler processing and enhanced pulse compression capability the SharpEye receiver in the SBS-900 system supplied to the Port of Melbourne VTS includes frequency diversity bringing additional target detection performance along with the excellent small target detection and separation benefits, KH claimed.
In total two SBS-900 systems have been installed by AMS and KH at Melbourne.
Ore exporting and offshore servicing harbour, Port Hedland chose the SharpEye SBS-900 X-Band radar system, which is to be installed as part of a complete VTS system by AMS by the third quarter of 2018.
With these latest applications of SharpEye, KH has reported 10 individual references with previous announcements covering the Wheatstone offshore gas processing platform. In addition to the offshore system, the Wheatstone project also encompasses an onshore VTS system, focusing on the monitoring and management of traffic at an LNG terminal near Onslow, Western Australia. As with the Wheatstone platform, Kelvin Hughes has supplied the SharpEye SBS-800 X-Band radars.
To ensure safe operations at Darwin, which is Australia’s closest port to Southeast Asia and over 18 times the size of Sydney Harbour, a VTS system was installed for which KH supplied two SharpEye SBS-800 X-Band radars and low profile antennas. Dampier, the world’s second largest bulk export port and also a major port for rig tenders servicing the offshore gas fields, which has seen a 60% increase in marine traffic over more than a decade, led to the installation of a new VTS centre for which KH also supplied in conjunction with AMSG, two SharpEye SBS-800 systems.