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COMPANY ANALYSIS

CEE HydroSystems

TECHNOLOGY ENTREPRENEURSHIP ENT600 : CASE STUDY


FACULTY & PROGRAMME : ARCHITECTURE, PLANNING AND
SURVEYING (AP220)
SEMESTER : EIGHT (8)
PROJECT TITLE : UNMANNED SURVEY VESSEL
NAME : MUHAMMAD AIMAN BIN MOHD MOKHTAR
LECTURER : DR. SHAFIQ SHAHRUDDIN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all, I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my lecturer Dr Shafiq
Shahruddin who gave me the golden opportunity to do this wonderful project on the topic
Company Analysis on CEE HydroSystem, which also helped me in doing a lot of research
and I came to know about so many new things I am really thankful to them.Secondly i would
also like to thank the manufacturer company CEE HydroSystem which helping me by giving
their company information in term of organization, product, development, business and
marketing.Lastly, thank you very much to my friends who helped me a lot in finalizing this
project within the limited time. Any attempt at any level cannot be satifactorily completed
without the support and guidance from these parties.

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LIST OF ABBREVITION

CEEPULSE™ - Black box


CEE-LINE™ - GNSS pole-mounted
CEESCOPE™ - Portable single beam echo sounder and GPS
CEEDUCER™ - Single beam echo sounder
CEE-USV™ - Unmanned Survey vessels
CEETIDE™ - Radar tide gauge recorder
GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite
GPS - Global positioning System

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TABLE OF CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .......................................................................................................... i
LIST OF ABBREVITION .........................................................................................................ii
TABLE OF CONTENT ........................................................................................................... iii
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................................... 1
1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 2
1.1 Background Study ..................................................................................................... 2
1.2 Problem Statement .................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Purpose Study ............................................................................................................ 2
2. COMPANY INFORMATION ........................................................................................... 3
2.1 Background ................................................................................................................ 3
2.2 Organizational Sturcture .......................................................................................... 3
2.3 Product/Services ........................................................................................................ 4
2.3.1 Product ................................................................................................................ 4
2.3.2 Services................................................................................................................ 4
2.4 Business, marketing, operational strategy .............................................................. 5
3. COMPANY ANALYSIS ................................................................................................... 6
3.1 SWOT ......................................................................................................................... 6
3.2 Strength ...................................................................................................................... 6
3.3 Weakness .................................................................................................................... 7
3.4 Opportunities ............................................................................................................. 7
3.5 Threats........................................................................................................................ 7
4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ....................................................................................... 8
4.1 Findings ...................................................................................................................... 8
4.1.1 Less Coverage & Limited Accuracy ................................................................. 8
4.1.2 Less Resolution ................................................................................................... 8
4.1.3 Moderate Power Supply .................................................................................... 8
4.2 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 9
5. RECOMMENDATION AND IMPROVEMENT ............................................................. 9
6. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................ 10
7. REFERENCES ................................................................................................................ 11
8. APPENDICES ................................................................................................................. 12

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

CEE HydroSystem is one of the newly established companies which developed and
manufacture hydrographic survey equipment. One of the focused product is Unmanned Survey
Vessel (CEE-USV™). CEE-USV™ is an autonomous survey boat or vessels that deliver high
performance for data acquisition in shallow water. Unlike the other Unmanned Survey Vasslas
which produced by other companies or manufacturer, CEE-USV™ is integrated with other top
notch survey compononet to deliver full satisfactory usage for the user. But, in hydrography
the most important thing need to be put in priority is the quality of the data and one of the factor
that can influence the data quality is the capability of the equipment. The current CEE-USV™
only integrated with single beam echo sounder which only bring limited accuracy, less
coverage site survey, poor resolution of the displayed data and moderate power supply for the
vessels.. As one of the newly formed company, they need to compete with the other big and
famous company in term of demand from the client and think how to improve and upgrade the
developed survey equipment. Multi beam echo sounder provides the capability which the single
beam echo sounder does not have. As for the power supply, battery type Nickel Metal Hydride
can be replaced with Lithium Polymer due to the flexibility in production and durability. With
this upgraded and improvement, the CEE HydroSystem can penetrate the market like other
company. Also, the brand of the product can be introduced world wide since it have the
capability to produce excellent performance in equipment operation and result in data
acquisition.

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1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background Study


Hydrographic survey is the survey of underwater physical features or characteristics. It
is the science of measurements of all factors below the waters, which affect all marine
activities such as dragging, marine construction and offshore drilling. Hydrographic
surveys in shallow water are very difficult because there are various risks to both staff
and equipment or may be factors that compromise the methodology of the survey
resulting in a poor data quality. Risks may arise from ultra-low regions where the survey
vessel or equipment may touch the riverbed, rapid flow in and around weirs, dams and
intakes, due to flooded areas where submerged debris may be considered too hazardous
to be surveyed. The data quality also may be affect by certain environmental variables,
such as bad GNSS positioning across bridges and under tree dots, turbid water, and
fluid mud. The rapid development of unmanned survey vessels mostly used by many
surveyors and researcher to collect underwater data. This vessel is made with highly
durable body and performance also equipped with hydrographic component such as
Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), transducer, and antenna which is really
reliable for underwater survey.

1.2 Problem Statement


The rapid development in technology has contribute to more sophisticated
hydrographic survey equipment. However, demands for hydrographic survey from
clients, company and industries are increasing by days which make the work must be
done efficiently and fast but the quality of the data must be taken into priority. The
equipment capability for data acquisition greatly influence the accuracy od data
collected

1.3 Purpose Study


The purpose of this study is to enhance and improve the quality of survey boat in term
of vehicle specs including echo sounder, transducer, and batteries capacity.

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2. COMPANY INFORMATION

2.1 Background
CEE HydroSystems is a leading supplier and manufacturer of hydrographic surveying
tools of shallow water. CEE HydroSystems was launched at the in the early 2011 by
Bruttour International. This newly formed division, the development and production of
the field tested hydrographic survey products for shallow water first developed by
Bruttour. Since the company started, CEE HydroSystems has developed design and
development skills to expand the product range and now offers the CEETIDE™ tide
gauge and a set of highly unique echo beam sounders. CEE HydroSystems is still
innovating and modern technical strength is available for single-beam echo sounders.
As a result, CEE HydroSystems manage to developed equipment much smaller, lighter
and more durable than other items built on technology that has little changed over many
years. Owing to the advancement of electronic components, smaller and new echo
sounders are far more powerful than bigger versions of the previous ones. Thus, the
scale, ease and efficiency of the hydraulic sounders for low water must not be
compromised any longer. The flexibility and capability of CEE HydroSystems
equipment can be achieved simultaneously. All CEE products in Australia are produced
to the highest quality level and rigorously tested in the field

2.2 Organizational Sturcture

Director

Research &
Sales/Marketing Corperate Strategy
Development

Quality Control Operation & IT

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2.3 Product/Services
2.3.1 Product
CEE HydroSystem offers a variety of hydrographic survey equipment. There are
including single beam echoe sounders, unmanned survey vessels, jet ski survey
watercraft, hydrographic survey software, PPS Synchronization, and tide gauge .
CEESCOPE™ is the ultimate compact single-beam echo-sounding solution with a
number of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) options to suit a variety of
survey requirements. CEE ECHO™ provides high quality echo sounder capabilities
including ping rate of twenty hz, digital echogram, internal battery power and data
logging for a readily-owned GPS or GNSS receiver.. Besides, the CEEPULSE™ and
CEE-LINE™ "black box" echo sounders deliver outstanding shallow water survey
efficiency for small boats and USVs. The CEE-LINE™ is designed to communicate
with GPS data collectors for fast data collection using land survey methods with GPS
tools from Trimble, Leica, Topcon and the Hemisphere.. In addition to the CEE echo
sounder with the CEETIDE™ wave gauge recorder, CEE HydroSystems provides a
versatile and compact field solution based on radar water level sensors. CEE
HydroSystems CEE JET™ turn-key personal watercraft survey system also provides a
full package for nearshore surf zone hydrographic surveying.. The unique CEESCOPE-
USV™ echo sounder system even includes a long range radio telemetry package built-
in, for incorporation into remotely-operated or autonomous hydrographic survey drone
boats.

2.3.2 Services
 `Repairs and Calibrations
This company offers repairs, recalibration and testing for survey echosounders, velocity
meters and transducers.
 Hire
CEE HydroSystems provide hydrographic survey equipment such as echosounders,
MRU, velocity meters, tide gauges and CEE systems for both short and long term hire.
 Survey Field Support
Support technicians also provide assistance with onsite or remote product training and
installation of entire product range.

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2.4 Business, marketing, operational strategy
CEE HydroSystems produce hydrographic survey instruments such as single beam
echo sounders for precise bottom mapping in shallow waters environments. The
company is concerned with the supply of compact and portable systems which make
the survey process easier by combining several components into a single waterproof
and robust package. Older product lines include GPS and echo sounder devices,
including CEEDUCERTM and CEEDUCER PROTM. Our latest version is the High
Definition CEESCOPETM, which can be used for RTK applications. CEE
HydroSystem which can be considered a newly generation companies has made
partnership and associated with other renowed, prestigue and famous companies,
supplier, developer, corporates, engineers and surveyors to establish a stable
networking. For example, Teledyne, Dynaustic Ltd, Royal Australian Navy, EGS
Survey Ptd Ltd and others. This strategy also to enable CEE HydroSystem get
hydrographic project and use their developed equipment to increase the equipment
marketing value. The project that have been join by CEE HydroSystem :
 Guides YWAM Medical Ship MV Pacific Link through Uncharted Rivers in Papua
New Guinea
 CEE ECHO™ Replaces Traditional Echo Sounders for Hughes & Associates,
Alaska USA
 CEE-USV™ Surveying the Trans Alaska Pipeline System with Alyeska Pipeline,
Alaska USA
 RTK CEESCOPE™ Used for Historic Naval Dockyard Surveys, California USA
 CEE-USV™ Used for Extreme Shallow Water Coastal Lagoon Survey.
 Rapid Mobilization CEESCOPE™ and Side Scan Survey Kits for Royal Australian
Navy
 CEE-USV™ Completes Site-Wide Mine Tailings and Acid Leach Pad Reservoir
Survey
 CEE-LINE™ Used for Dam Bathymetric Survey with Trimble GNSS

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3. COMPANY ANALYSIS

3.1 SWOT
Strength Weakness
 Good quality  Accuracy limited
 Small and Convinient  Less coverage
 Autonomous Navigation  Low resolution
 Unique Vessels Design  Moderate power supply
 Excellent telemetry system
 Good range wave emmition
Opportunities Threats
 Business sector expanded with new  Rapid revolution technologies
technologies  Competition with other companies
 Increase better relationship with  Counterfeit product
associate partner and suppliers

3.2 Strength
CEE HydroSystem is one of the excellent manufacture for hydrographic equipment
which can be use at compact shallow water. This company has gained the trust by many
parties due to the quality component selection in making the Unmanned Survey Vessel
(CEE-USV™) equipment. The vessel body made of Durable Fiberglass Hull and High
Quality Fixtures which enable the vessel long lasting. Besides, CEE HydroSystem also
focused more on their developed equipment to be in small product. With a minimum
number of connecting cables, the echoe sounder may be removed and reinstalled after
use on a manned boat easily. Moreover, the autonomous navigation also has been
installed in the vessels. The operator simply selects if survey lines are run by the mode
switch on the control panel manually or automatically. It does not require additional
software, a problem-free remote PC on the vehicle or any other radio communication
tools. Also, the Unmanned Survey vessel from HydroSystem has a uniqe vessel design
which provides emergency floatation which guarantees that the boat can not sink even
if water fills the entire rear section. The telemetry system and wave emmition also
excellent. The Unmanned Survey Vessel wing has antennas higher than the water to
increase the data range considerably. Various option for antennas also available to
optimize operating range up to and beyond 1 km.

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3.3 Weakness
There are 4 major weakness which can be identified in Unmanned Survey Vessel (CEE-
USV™). First, it is time consuming for data acquisition. The vessel CEE-USV™ is
integrated with the latest and modern single beam echoe sounder but, the principle of
single beam still the same which is single beam systems typically have beam widths of
10-30 degrees and estimate depth by measuring the shortest slant range to the seafloor
within the main beam. It can only measure only one point per acoustic echo wave
emitted. For this reason, it is limited accuracy, less coverage, and poor resolution. As
for vessel operating endurance,it has moderate power supply around 3 to 4 hours. The
power supply need to recharge if the site data acquisition is large and this become a
hassle for the user.

3.4 Opportunities
The use of Unmanned Survey Vessel equipped with high performance technologies is
not something new in hydrographic sector. Beside CEE HydroSystem, there are others
manufacturer companies which has been developed this type of product and equipped
it with their own upgrade technologies. But, with CEE HydroSystem own design and
development,they can expand their business sector with this additional product and take
part in the competition with other companies and manufacturer. Also, in order to
developed survey equipment CEE HydroSystem must collaborated with other
companies, manufacturer, and developer to utilise a better version of the product. For
example, technical collaboration between Dynautics and CEE HydroSystems which
brings a uniquely integrated unmanned survey solution to the market.

3.5 Threats
The rapid revolution in technology also can influence the development and demand of
equipment survey. So, it is not a surprise when there will be newly version of survey
equipment developed after the current version by a certain companies. This will make
the competition among the manufacturer more fierce. This will bring a great pressure
to CEE HydroSystem since it is inferior to other long established companies which is
more well known and famous.

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4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Findings
CEE HydroSystem has developed one of the high tech performance equipment which
is Unmanned Survey Vessels (CEE-USV™). However there are several issue regarding
the component integrated within the vessel:

4.1.1 Less Coverage & Limited Accuracy


The single beam echo sounder produces an echogram of the sea floor at a point
directly below the transduce. Single-beam surveys usually only cover 5 to 10
percent the total area of the seafloor.

F ig ure3

4.1.2 Less Resolution


Single beam echo sounder produce lower frequencies so it have longer range of
wave that can penetrate deeper into the water, but have less resolution in
depthThe maps generated from single-beam sonar samples may lack high-
enough resolution to detect small and ecologically important habitat features

4.1.3 Moderate Power Supply


The power supply installed in the vessel consist of Nickel Metal Hydride
(NiMH) which is a rechargeable type batteries. In the site survey, the endurance
power source around 4 hours. Mostly of the Unmanned Vessel Survey
developed by other companies also has same endurance for the vessel.

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4.2 Discussion
The Unmanned Survey Vessel (CEE-USV™) developed by this company has both the
advantages and disadvantages.Based on the disadvantage that has been review in “4.1.1
findings”, there are four (4) issues need to be overcome or imrove. The issues on less
coverage, limited accuracy, and less resolution can be overcome by using multi beam
echo sounder. The advantages of multi-beam echo sounds are that the sea floor is
measured by a fan of small acoustic beams, which offers 100 percent bottom coverage.
The resulting sea floor maps are accurate compared to mapping with single beam echo
sounder. The manufacturer also can increase the performance of the single beam echo
sounder by increase the frequency of the equipment or using dual frequency for data
acquisition. As for the power supply, the manufacturer shoud change the current power
supply into Lithium Ion battery. Manufacturer also can use lithium polymer battery
which is also usable for operating the equipment. The use of flexible solar cell can be
taken into alternative since it is flexible, durable and portable.

5. RECOMMENDATION AND IMPROVEMENT

CEE HydroSystem is one of the excellent companies in Hydrographic industries. The


product developed has been proved can compete with other big companies. For example,
the used of CEE-USV™ in a project for extreme shallow water Coastal Lagoon Survey to
help staff at Coastal Frontiers Corperation.But, in order to overcome the weakness from
CEE-USV™, there is two improvement should be made. First in term of data acquisition
which is echo-sounder. The single beam echo-sounder should be replaced with multi beam
echo-sounder because it has The benefits to map the seafloor by a fan of narrow acoustic
beams, thus providing 100% coverage of the bottom. The resulting seabed maps are more
detailed than those obtained using single-beam mapping. Thus, regarding the accuracy of
the data it can show a reasonable accuracy in seafloor mapping. As for the power supply,
it is more reasonable to use Lithium Polymer battery since it has flexible form factor which
any reasonable size can be produced economically,light weight and more resistant to
overcharge.
.

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6. CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the use of multi beam echo sounder can provide more satisfied result for data
acquisition since it has the wide range coverage, good resolution, and full detail mapping.
The accuracy of data also higly recommend than single beam echo sounder.Also with the
upgraded power supply, this product will bring satisfaction to the user of this survey vessel
boat which is mostly from surveyor, researcher, and companies which responsible for
collecting sub profiling data. Most of this profession usually took part in a mega project.
By using the improved product the brand of the company CEE HydroSystem also will be
known at every stage and level of industries.

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7. REFERENCES

CEE HydroSystem, C. (2015). About Us. Retrieved from


https://www.ceehydrosystem.com
Geomatching, Retrieved from
https://geo-matching.com/usvs-unmanned-surface-vehicles/cee-usv
Robert D. Christ L, 2014, The Ocean Environment. Retrieved from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary/echo-sounder
SolarLLC, March 2020, The flexibility solar panel. Retrieved from
https://www.thesolarnerd.com/blog/flexible-solar-panel-review/

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8. APPENDICES

CEE-USV™

CEE-LINE™

CEESCOPE™

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CEEDUCER™

CEEPULSE™

CEETIDE™

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