• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.69-79
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• 2017

This paper presents the operations of a multi-beam echo sounder (MBES) installed on the deep-sea remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Hemire. Hemire explored hydrothermal vents in the Forecast volcano located near the Mariana Trench in March of in 2006. During these explorations, we acquired profiling points on the routes of the vehicle using the MBES. Information on the position, depth, and attitude of the ROV are essential to obtain higher accuracy for the profiling quality. However, the MBES installed on Hemire does not have its own position and depth sensors. Although it has attitude sensors for roll, pitch, and heading, the specifications of these sensors were not clear. Therefore, we had to merge the high-performance sensor data for the motion and position obtained from Hemire into the profiling data of the MBES. Then, we could properly convert the profiling points with respect to the Earth-fixed coordinates. This paper describes the integration of the MBES with Hemire, as well as the coordinate conversion between them. Bathymetric maps near the summit of the Forecast volcano were successfully collected through these processes. A comparison between the bathymetric maps from the MBES and those from the Onnuri Research Vessel, the mother ship of the ROV Hemire for these explorations, is also presented.