Cable Route Planning:

MakaiPlan Pro is a PC windows-based program which works in a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment (using tools from GeoMedia by Intergraph) to allow you to precisely place your cable relative to shorelines, bathymetry, other cables, etc. MakaiPlan allows you to collaboratively design a cable path with cable designers, owners, surveyors, and installers all sharing the same project data. See Makai’s brochure on MakaiPlan for details.

Preliminary Ship Plan:

MakaiPlan Pro can create a preliminary ship plan. This is the detailed set of ship and cable payout instructions for installing the cable along a given seafloor cable path. The Ship Plan is similar to a Route Position List (RPL) except that it is surface oriented. The preliminary Ship Plan is generated quickly and automatically based on simple steady-state approximations to the cable installation process – it provides a first-cut at a Ship Plan.

Cable Lay Simulations:

MakaiPlan Pro includes a state-of-the-art cable installation model that can quickly and accurately compute the cable shape and movement during a submarine cable lay.

MakaiPlan Pro’s cable model computes the complex, three-dimensional, dynamic shape of the cable between the ship and the touchdown under nearly any sequence of ship movements, cable payout and cable types and bodies. Makai’s model has been rigorously tested and calibrated at-sea. As a result, the cable touchdown conditions – location, slack, tension and even bottom dragging – are confidently computed. With MakaiPlan Pro you can simulate the installation of an entire cable lay in order to compute the actual cable touchdown conditions for a given ship plan.
 

Cable Lay Feasibility:

With MakaiPlan Pro you can determine whether a cable installation is feasible, given certain RPL requirements, ship limitations, and environmental conditions. You can make all your mistakes in advance on the simulator when they can be easily corrected and before they become at-sea disasters.

Post Installation Analysis:

MakaiPlan Pro can be used to simulate in detail a cable installation after the installation is complete. As-laid cable paths can be refined and potential seabed problems can be identified.
 

3D Visualization:

Using the new Makai Digital Terrain Modeling (DTM) software, MakaiPlanPro allows you to accurately process and visualize large amounts of point data collected along an entire surveyed area in order to identify any potential hazards for plowing or surface lay operations (see Makai’s DTM brochure for details).

During a simulation, MakaiPlan Pro allows you to fully visualize the installation process in 3D, including the seabed surface, not just the planned cable route.

Cable Engineer Training:

MakaiPlan Pro is similar in operation to MakaiLay – Makai’s at-sea cable monitoring, logging, navigating and controlling software. Operators can run entire cable installations prior to going to sea and become familiar with both the software concepts and the details of a particular cable lay.

Finalizing a Ship Plan:

With MakaiPlan Pro, the cable installation can be simulated in detail and refinements can be made to the preliminary Ship Plan. With a dynamic 3-D simulation of the lay, you look at the entire installation, minute-by-minute, and compute seafloor slack, tension, and location along all or portions of the route. The analysis can be accomplished at 25 to 50 times faster than real time (1 to 2 days processing). Every repeater touchdown, every altercourse, every splice, every slowdown and every stop can be graphically reviewed and adjustments made to the preliminary plan to compensate for these unsteady events.

For more information and pricing, contact: makaiplanpro@makai.com