Current innovations?

[northernone]

Musing on what the 'cutting edge' of diving currently. What are the innovators developing? Is the era of pioneers long over and now only small refinements and marketing?

We may be developing safer practices (debatable perhaps) but a decline in innovation in the last 20 years. Perhaps the development of solid state o2 sensors for rebreathers might be significant?

Intended as a thread collecting neat dives and divers rather than a critique of the industry.

Regards,
Cameron

 

[blac86]

Alchemy, Alemani, C4, DeepApnea, Moana Waterman, Molchanov, and Trigons are constantly innovating the cutting edge of fin design. I'm actually considering a pair of Alemani Speedy Shortfins for my monkey diving kit; they aren't too long, have amazing forward propulsion, and handle torsion better than any non-neoprene fin I've seen. Unless shipping from the EU gets cheaper Moana Waterman Hybrid blades will almost certainly be my next spear/apnea fins. I'm currently using a pair of deep apnea 100cm quadraxial Carbonfiber fins and they are the most effortless and fastest fins I've ever used, I just wish they frog kicked better.

 

[stuartv]

I think solid state O2 sensors and integration of CO2 sensors into CCR are innovations that will really take hold over the next 2 or 3 years. Maybe someone will also integrate a DiveSoft-style acoustic Helium sensor and CCRs will become able to fully analyze the gas you feed them, and without having to replace any sensors on any kind of frequent basis.

What I have NOT heard anything about, but it seems like somebody would be working on "new and improved" is scrubber technology. Possible innovations:

- longer duration from the absorbent

- greater resistance to water and production of a caustic cocktail

- greater resistance to channeling

- reusability

Imagine if someone came up with a CO2 absorbent that had the form of a sponge-like air filter. No loose material to have to pack or develop channels or mix with water. And if it had the capacity to last for 20 hours. And if it had a chemical, electrical, or electrochemical process whereby you could take it out, "clean" it to free all the bound CO2 from it, and then stick it back in the CCR to use it again.

Take it one step further: The CCR is designed to use this new CO2 "filter" and it has a "regen" cycle you can put the unit through to release all the bound CO2 and exhaust it from the loop, during a dive. Maybe that lets you use a smaller filter with only, say a 2 hour capacity, to make the overall CCR unit size smaller.

What if the CCR unit got small enough to make it feasible to use, say a pair of AL80s for your dil and O2?

What if the unit were small enough that you could use, say a pair of AL40s or 50s or 72s for your gas, have a completely redundant CCR unit on board, and you also had quick connects that would let your unit share both cylinders with your buddy's unit? So, you could safely dive with no OC bailout bottles?

We can dream, can't we? Personally, I figure it's not "if", it's just "when".