Underwater Navigation Device

[Thalassamania]

If you brought an u/w GPS to market you would be killed in the rush. I don't think it needs to be able to do anything more sophisticated than help people get back to their entry point, although if you could add an ability to find u/w waypoints, so much the better.

What would people pay for that? I would have thought anything less than US$500 and you have a queue. Above that, I think they would still sell, but you it won't become de rigeur in the same way that a dive computer has.

One thing I have never understood is why no one has popularised an underwater beacon locator, so that you can find your way back to the ascent line by "pings". I would have thought that would be a cheap and simple innovation that would make a pack of cash for someone.

Good luck bringing it to market - I think the idea has huge potential.

For what its worth: it was built, it was marketed, it never developed a market: Dive Tracker.

 

[Rhone Man]

For what its worth: it was built, it was marketed, it never developed a market: Dive Tracker.

That astonishes me. The propensity of divemasters to get lost in this part of the world, I would have thought that would be money well spent...

 

[Thalassamania]

Me too, we bought and used several of their fancier models.

 

[kacem78]

Hi Rohn

look to this sophisticated ping system, this was deviated from military devices
a very good one, quiet expensive, the company did shut down some times ago,

why ? this did not really create any market ? i did spend some time asking, digging , i have a couple of thought

- with such a system 3 peoples are involved in case of any trouble (imagine you get lost)
who is responsible? the diver ? the boat crew? the manufacture ? this is one of the major issue on not being able to trace who is responsible in case of any problem.

i tried last year to test such a system when i was in the red sea, i was on a boat, and the manager of the boat refused to take the responsibility in case i get lost, and asked me to sign a document.

- two products is two times problems, what if the boat drift ? what if the transmitter get lost? what if the battery, .... what ?.. what ... ?

- third is the estimation given by the system it's not that precise to get you safer to your location, it's depend on the strength of the signal, so you have to check in which direction the signal is heigh

- doesn't work if any obstruction,

that some of the reasons i collected from divers, and this goes in your question, why the industry did not come with such a system that i'm working on?

well, you need just to step back a year ago, and try to see how much cost an IMU device, it was and still in some cases around 5K-10K USD.

it's no longer the case, and i bet with you that within less then 2 years, those IMU will be common , just think about the "Galileo computer" from scubapro, they have already implemented the electronic compass , just because the magnetometers start to be affordable those days, if you take the cost of a 3axis accelerometer chip today, it's less then 5$ , that why you find it now in any iphone, PDA, WII, and many other devices,

still the 3 AXIS Gyro is expensive but not that much to start working on a scuba diving prototyp , it's in the range of 300USD today.

just think about the stone ages of the diving computers, all the reluctances, do you still sea people diving with tables, just a few and for fun.


hope this clarify some points

kacem

 

[kacem78]

forgot the link

Naiad Mariner Rx + Tx Marea Diving achat vente d'équipement et matériel de plongée et de chasse sous-marine

 

[kacem78]

the english version

New Underwater Homing Naiad 2006 Marea Diving buy and sale of dive equipments

 

[jamesflynn]

Inertial Navigation for diving is a great idea. I think the greatest potential would be for it to be built into a dive computer. With all the MEMS gyro technology being used in PDAs and cell phones the price should keep coming down.

 

[kacem78]

not in the computer, because the computer is located in the hand of the diver and this will generate a lot of data useless data for the CPU which will suck all the power and overload the CPU
if a diver move his hands , tis doesn't mean that he is moving or changing the heading.

the IMU has to be located in a place that generate less useless data, and in the alignment of the heading

kacem

 

[Thalassamania]

Minimum spurious data would be generated at the diver's center of roll, pitch and yaw ... no?

 

[WVDiver]

Have you seen this site?

GPS Mapping of Underwater Sites