The Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) remotely operated towed vehicle (ROV) is called the FOCUS 1500, a stable and maneuverable towed platform manufactured by the MacArtney Underwater Technology Group. The sensors consist of a multibeam sonar (Reson 8101), a digital side scan sonar (Klein 2000), the SM-2000 (a laser line-scan system manufactured by the Northrop-Grumman Corporation), a sub-bottom profiler (SES 5000) and a magnetometer (Geometrics 880). The towed platform speed, attitude, direction, depth and elevation above the seafloor are all constantly monitored. Accurate positioning of the remotely operated towed vehicle is provided by coupling a differential GPS positioning system with deep-water acoustic positioning devices, soon to be integrated with an inertial navigation system mounted on the platform itself. Data generated by the sensors are transmitted to the survey vessel via a high capacity fiber-optic telemetry link and processed by the SAIC Integrated Survey System.

SM2000 data is acquired and processed by GeoDAS-PC.Sample data can be viewed here.