Datapath’s Aetria KVM and visual control platform has been deployed aboard the RRS Sir David Attenborough, one of the world’s most advanced polar research vessels, as part of a planned technology refresh for the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the UK’s polar research organisation responsible for scientific work in the Antarctic and Arctic.
Datapath was brought into the project at an early stage to evaluate requirements, before entering a collaborative design phase with BAS involving the company’s sales, pre-sales and network engineering teams.
The deployment comprises 11 Aetria Workstations and three VSN Series video wall controller platforms. Four VSN300 systems support operator-focused visualisation, while VSNMicro 600 systems are deployed on decks 5 and 8, and a VSN V3 system on deck 3 provides greater expansion capacity and higher numbers of 4K outputs for larger displays. The installation also incorporates six Image4K graphics cards, 17 IQS4 IP video splitters, 12 VisionSC-A2 capture cards and three ActiveSQX2 encode/decode cards, supported by two Aetria Network Managers configured as a high-availability pair for redundancy. Aligo RX100 receivers and Aligo TX100 KVM-over-IP transmitters complete the system.
With the vessel subject to tight docking schedules in the UK, initial hardware was purchased and commissioned at BAS headquarters, allowing teams to learn the system before it was installed onboard. Midwich and Logicalis supported the purchase process, with Datapath providing training on commissioning Aetria and remote support during installation.
Kinzie Orton, HPC solution architect at British Antarctic Survey, said: “Datapath was extremely helpful with the installation and ensured everything was implemented to a high standard. We’re extremely impressed with the Datapath equipment, and the feedback from users is that the system is robust and very easy to use.”
Orton added that the system had already been used on its first outing to support Antarctic science, with the ship now on its way to a second deployment deep into the Antarctic ice.
Adam Marsden, sales manager at Datapath, said: “It was a pleasure working with the British Antarctic Survey team. They had a very clear understanding of what they needed to achieve and communicated this effectively, enabling our pre-sales and networking teams to produce a design that delivered the desired outcome.”
Marsden added that Aetria was well suited to the vessel due to its configurability and display flexibility, with all hardware custom-built to order at Datapath’s UK headquarters ahead of installation.
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