Technology
CHS has been a world leader in the adoption of hydrographic survey technology, as well as in research and development. With responsibility for charting the world's longest coastline (243,792 kilometres) as well as 6.55 million square kilometres of continental shelf and territorial waters (2nd largest in the world) including extensive inland waterways such as the St. Lawrence Seaway, CHS uses relatively meagre financial resources to maintain a world-record inventory of over 1000 published charts, and as such, the organization was an early adopter of single-beam sonar, radio-navigation positioning systems, and computer processing and storage.
The joint Canada-U.S. DEW Line also necessitated innovative surveying techniques throughout remote northern areas in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago in support of ships carrying logistics and construction material. CHS is one of the only hydrographic offices in the world with the capability to undertake Arctic surveying, frequently operating in waters which are frozen between 10–12 months of the year.
CHS has migrated from single-beam sonar to becoming a major user of multibeam echo sounder sonar systems coupled with GPS to achieve improved survey accuracies. CHS was also one of the first organizations in the world to develop airborne LIDAR technology, with the LARSEN-500 sensor being used for remote Arctic surveys. Survey data processing software provided by companies such as CARIS and Helical Systems, as well as the development of Oracle Spatial database storage, are spin-offs from research developments at CHS, and are now used throughout the world by other Hydrographic Offices and in the geo-spatial technology industry.
Read more about this topic: Canadian Hydrographic Service
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