Daily mining operations depend on data in the form of reports and positions for drilling, logistics, supply, production, and scheduling. In an offshore field, the majority of communication is data rather than voice. This is typically sent via satellite links between a sender and receiver in close proximity. The Cobham Tactical Communications and Surveillance (TCS) team visit offshore platforms and vessels with diversity antennae.

Designed to withstand the harsh environments, these are fixed to an external superstructure and linked by cable to the control room.

They support composite and HD video and audio, VoIP, email, GPS feeds and can control a pan tilt zoom (PTZ) security camera.

The antennae allow voice conversation, video streaming, sharing of email attachments, and software patches for platform and vessel systems.

This can be achieved through another MESH node within 10 kilometres (or further with a higher-mounted antenna) at 18 megabits per second.

The Cobham Wi-Fi hub system uses a long range, non line of sight (NLOS), self-healing MESH system, with all node s transmitting to and from each other using any network.

It doesn’t have a central hub to slow traffic or limit range, which means every node is a repeater – improving efficiency and extending the service into a wide area network.

The MESH system can automatically route data from sender to receiver through the optimal node s in a group.