Meridata MDCS software and systems

MDCS is a powerful package for survey planning, real-time mission support and data acquisition. It is specifically designed for bathymetric and marine geophysical surveys.

MDCS can interface with a wide variety of survey equipment and sensors, and supports concurrent acquisition of

• bathymetry,
• marine seismic,
• sub-bottom profiling and
• side-scan sonar data.

Meridata MDCS is designed with absolutely best accuracy, precision and reliability in mind while offering superior user experience.

MDCS easily scales up from single instrument surveys to multi-mode, multi-frequency surveys. There are no separate versions of MDCS for different tasks, but instead, its modular design allows configuring the system to precisely match your need. You can make a survey with just one computer, running a single instance of MDCS and using just one set of navigation instruments, but still work with many acoustic instruments at once.

In the long run it also becomes evident that using MDCS reduces need for operator training as all these surveys can be done with just this one software package.

As an example of its reliability measures, Meridata MDCS supports redundant positioning/heading/attitude sources to ensure continuous productivity. Another one is the built-in support for sensor data quality control and monitoring.

Real-time survey support

MDCS provides support for vessel steering and survey quality control. Acquired data streams are monitored for acceptable quality figures and continuity. Any deviation will be reported to the surveyor.

Through MDCS, the surveyor is also provided with unique capabilities to control and monitor the sonar system. Depending on the type of the survey, different real-time presentations of the sonar data are available.

Data sets

MDCS logs data in proprietary Meridata MDCS raw data format. This allows raw observations to be logged for each sensor in a way that enables proper observation quality management prior to combining them to final solutions.

The true power of MDCS data sets is easily seen when accessed with Meridata MDPS processing and interpretation software. There you can fine tune the processing settings of raw observations prior to combination to final data records.

Similarly, this specific approach enables exporting the raw data from MDCS to many industry standard data formats, such as SEG-Y and XTF, more accurately than it would be possible when logging to these formats in real time.

Operating platform

MDCS real-time survey software currently runs on both stand-alone and multiple networked PCs with Windows 10 and 11 operating systems.