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Ultra-short Baseline
USBL (ultra-short baseline, also known as SSBL for super short base line) is a method of underwater acoustic positioning. A USBL system consists of a transceiver, which is mounted on a pole under a ship, and a transponder or responder on the seafloor, on a towfish, or on an ROV. A computer, or "topside unit", is used to calculate a position from the ranges and bearings measured by the transceiver. Mechanism An acoustic pulse is transmitted by the transceiver and detected by the subsea transponder, which replies with its own acoustic pulse. This return pulse is detected by the shipboard transceiver. The time from the transmission of the initial acoustic pulse until the reply is detected is measured by the USBL system and is converted into a range. To calculate a subsea position, the USBL calculates both a range and an angle from the transceiver to the subsea beacon. Angles are measured by the transceiver, which contains an array of transducers. The transceiver head normally co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Underwater Acoustic Positioning System
An underwater acoustic positioning system is a system for the tracking and navigation of underwater vehicles or divers by means of acoustic distance and/or direction measurements, and subsequent position triangulation. Underwater acoustic positioning systems are commonly used in a wide variety of underwater work, including oil and gas exploration, ocean sciences, salvage operations, marine archaeology, law enforcement and military activities. Method of operation Figure 1 describes the general method of operation of an acoustic positioning system, this is an example of a long baseline (LBL) positioning system for ROV ;Baseline station deployment and survey Acoustic positioning systems measure positions relative to a framework of baseline stations, which must be deployed prior to operations. In the case of a long-baseline (LBL) system, a set of three or more baseline transponders are deployed on the sea floor. The location of the baseline transponders either relative to each ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transceiver
In radio communication, a transceiver is an electronic device which is a combination of a radio ''trans''mitter and a re''ceiver'', hence the name. It can both transmit and receive radio waves using an antenna, for communication purposes. These two related functions are often combined in a single device to reduce manufacturing costs. The term is also used for other devices which can both transmit and receive through a communications channel, such as ''optical transceivers'' which transmit and receive light in optical fiber systems, and ''bus transceivers'' which transmit and receive digital data in computer data buses. Radio transceivers are widely used in wireless devices. One large use is in two-way radios, which are audio transceivers used for bidirectional person-to-person voice communication. Examples are cell phones, which transmit and receive the two sides of a phone conversation using radio waves to a cell tower, cordless phones in which both the phone handset and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transponder
In telecommunications, a transponder is a device that, upon receiving a signal, emits a different signal in response. The term is a blend word, blend of ''transmitter'' and ''responder''. In air navigation or radio frequency identification, a Transponder (aeronautics), flight transponder is an automated transceiver in an aircraft that emits a coded identifying signal in response to an interrogating received signal. In a communications satellite, a Transponder (satellite communications), satellite transponder receives signals over a range of uplink frequencies, usually from a satellite ground station; the transponder amplifies them, and re-transmits them on a different set of downlink frequencies to receivers on Earth, often without changing the content of the received signal or signals. Satellite/broadcast communications A communications satellite’s Communication channel, channels are called transponders because each is a separate transceiver or repeater. With digital video d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Towfish
A towed array sonar is a system of hydrophones towed behind a submarine or a surface ship on a cable. Trailing the hydrophones behind the vessel, on a cable that can be kilometers long, keeps the array's sensors away from the ship's own noise sources, greatly improving its signal-to-noise ratio, and hence the effectiveness of detecting and tracking faint contacts, such as quiet, low noise-emitting submarine threats, or seismic signals. A towed array offers superior resolution and range compared with hull mounted sonar. It also covers the baffles, the blind spot of hull mounted sonar. However, effective use of the system limits a vessel's speed and care must be taken to protect the cable from damage. History During World War I, a towed sonar array known as the "Electric Eel" was developed by Harvey Hayes, a U.S. Navy physicist. This system is believed to be the first towed sonar array design. It employed two cables, each with a dozen hydrophones attached. The project was discontin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle
A remotely operated underwater vehicle (technically ROUV or just ROV) is a tethered underwater mobile device, commonly called ''underwater robot''. Definition This meaning is different from remote control vehicles operating on land or in the air. ROVs are unoccupied, usually highly maneuverable, and operated by a crew either aboard a vessel/floating platform or on proximate land. They are common in deepwater industries such as offshore hydrocarbon extraction. They are linked to a host ship by a neutrally buoyant tether or, often when working in rough conditions or in deeper water, a load-carrying umbilical cable is used along with a tether management system (TMS). The TMS is either a garage-like device which contains the ROV during lowering through the splash zone or, on larger work-class ROVs, a separate assembly which sits on top of the ROV. The purpose of the TMS is to lengthen and shorten the tether so the effect of cable drag where there are underwater currents is minimize ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acoustics
Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics technology may be called an Acoustical engineering, acoustical engineer. The application of acoustics is present in almost all aspects of modern society with the most obvious being the audio and noise control industries. Hearing (sense), Hearing is one of the most crucial means of survival in the animal world and speech is one of the most distinctive characteristics of human development and culture. Accordingly, the science of acoustics spreads across many facets of human society—music, medicine, architecture, industrial production, warfare and more. Likewise, animal species such as songbirds and frogs use sound and hearing as a key element of mating rituals or for marking territories. Art, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subsea
Subsea technology involves fully submerged ocean equipment, operations, or applications, especially when some distance offshore, in deep ocean waters, or on the seabed. The term ''subsea'' is frequently used in connection with oceanography, marine or ocean engineering, ocean exploration, remotely operated vehicle (ROVs) autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), submarine communications or power cables, seafloor mineral mining, oil and gas, and offshore wind power. Oil and gas Oil and gas fields reside beneath many inland waters and offshore areas around the world, and in the oil and gas industry the term ''subsea'' relates to the exploration, drilling and development of oil and gas fields in these underwater locations. Under water oil fields and facilities are generically referred to using a ''subsea'' prefix, such as ''subsea well'', ''subsea field'', ''subsea project'', and ''subsea developments.'' Subsea oil field developments are usually split into ''Shallow water'' and ''Deep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transducers
A transducer is a device that converts energy from one form to another. Usually a transducer converts a signal in one form of energy to a signal in another. Transducers are often employed at the boundaries of automation, measurement, and control systems, where electrical signals are converted to and from other physical quantities (energy, force, torque, light, motion, position, etc.). The process of converting one form of energy to another is known as transduction. Types * Mechanical transducers, so-called as they convert physical quantities into mechanical outputs or vice versa; * Electrical transducers however convert physical quantities into electrical outputs or signals. Examples of these are: ** a thermocouple that changes temperature differences into a small voltage; ** a linear variable differential transformer (LVDT), used to measure displacement (position) changes by means of electrical signals. Sensors, actuators and transceivers Transducers can be categorized by whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phase Difference
In physics and mathematics, the phase of a periodic function F of some real variable t (such as time) is an angle-like quantity representing the fraction of the cycle covered up to t. It is denoted \phi(t) and expressed in such a scale that it varies by one full turn as the variable t goes through each period (and F(t) goes through each complete cycle). It may be measured in any angular unit such as degrees or radians, thus increasing by 360° or 2\pi as the variable t completes a full period. This convention is especially appropriate for a sinusoidal function, since its value at any argument t then can be expressed as \phi(t), the sine of the phase, multiplied by some factor (the amplitude of the sinusoid). (The cosine may be used instead of sine, depending on where one considers each period to start.) Usually, whole turns are ignored when expressing the phase; so that \phi(t) is also a periodic function, with the same period as F, that repeatedly scans the same range of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microphone Array
A microphone array is any number of microphones operating in tandem. There are many applications: * Systems for extracting voice input from ambient noise (notably telephones, speech recognition systems, hearing aids) * Surround sound and related technologies * Binaural recording * Locating objects by sound: acoustic source localization, e.g., military use to locate the source(s) of artillery fire. Aircraft location and tracking. * High fidelity original recordings * Environmental noise monitoring * Robotic navigation (acoustic SLAM) Typically, an array is made up of omnidirectional microphones, directional microphones, or a mix of omnidirectional and directional microphones distributed about the perimeter of a space, linked to a computer that records and interprets the results into a coherent form. Arrays may also be formed using numbers of very closely spaced microphones. Given a fixed physical relationship in space between the different individual microphone transducer arra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kalman Filter
For statistics and control theory, Kalman filtering, also known as linear quadratic estimation (LQE), is an algorithm that uses a series of measurements observed over time, including statistical noise and other inaccuracies, and produces estimates of unknown variables that tend to be more accurate than those based on a single measurement alone, by estimating a joint probability distribution over the variables for each timeframe. The filter is named after Rudolf E. Kálmán, who was one of the primary developers of its theory. This digital filter is sometimes termed the ''Stratonovich–Kalman–Bucy filter'' because it is a special case of a more general, nonlinear filter developed somewhat earlier by the Soviet mathematician Ruslan Stratonovich. In fact, some of the special case linear filter's equations appeared in papers by Stratonovich that were published before summer 1960, when Kalman met with Stratonovich during a conference in Moscow. Kalman filtering has numerous tech ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is a robot that travels underwater without requiring input from an operator. AUVs constitute part of a larger group of undersea systems known as unmanned underwater vehicles, a classification that includes non-autonomous remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) – controlled and powered from the surface by an operator/pilot via an umbilical or using remote control. In military applications an AUV is more often referred to as an unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV). Underwater gliders are a subclass of AUVs. History The first AUV was developed at the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington as early as 1957 by Stan Murphy, Bob Francois and later on, Terry Ewart. The "Special Purpose Underwater Research Vehicle", or SPURV, was used to study diffusion, acoustic transmission, and submarine wakes. Other early AUVs were developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1970s. One of these is on display in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
