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Case Study: VideoRay and Underwater Electrical Safety
Founded in 1999, VideoRay is a global leader in underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) technology, servicing the world’s navies, coast guards, and first responders. Since launching Mission Specialist technology, the VideoRay Defender and Pro 5 have seen significant growth in the Defense sector. These underwater robots help prevent terrorism, find and retrieve objects, inspect infrastructure both inland and offshore, and keep divers safe from hazardous conditions.
The need for electrical safety
As VideoRay innovates with new designs and capabilities, its ROVs assist in increasingly challenging situations and environments. Owners have learned to trust them to perform in their most demanding missions. The hallmarks of VideoRay systems are ruggedness, reliability, portability, ease of use, and integration with a wide range of sensors and tools available for inspection-class vehicles.
A truly global company, VideoRay’s technology is the most advanced available, specializing in one-person, portable, reliable underwater systems. VideoRay’s first-class customer service has propelled it to dominance in inspection-class ROVs. Users from the U.S. Navy to aquaculture farmers in remote areas of the world know that they can depend on VideoRay’s durability and reliability – and when something goes wrong, an expert voice on the phone offers advice and a solution.
Since ROVs spend most of their time underwater, VideoRay chose Bender to provide continuous monitoring of the ROV’s power system by integrating the Bender Iso Insulation Monitor. The ROV power system is isolated by employing the Bender IsoRW425 Insulation Monitor as part of VideoRay’s control console, the ROV, its power system, umbilical power cable, and ROV all remain undamaged and safe in the unlikely event of a ground fault. Should excessive current leakage occur, an alarm will trigger and indicate that the system has experienced a ground fault, tripping off as a result.
Why the IsoRW425?
A benefit of the isoRW425 is that it can predictively monitor the de-energized ungrounded umbilical power cable that runs to the ROV. Only the control console is initially energized so the user can know ahead of time if a ground-fault issue exists or not before powering up the ROV.
Finally, the ‘RW’ variant of the Insulation Monitor was chosen to provide the most robust performance. This variant is usually selected for rail applications where the Bender device's excessive vibration, shock, and movement are required without compromising performance. This characteristic is desirable for VideoRay since the installation is located in a portable operator control console that is constantly being moved from one ROV deployment to another and used in highly rugged environments.
For more information about this application or to learn more about Bender technology related to your specific application, contact our team of experts.
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