Presenting RedWAVE, a ready and available underwater GPS system

[lowviz]

...//... So why not assume that engineers who developed this system had enough experience, background and will to actually make it happen?

Speaking as an engineer, that is indeed my assumption. There was an initial surprise in this thread at the high cost, I don't see your asking price as being high enough to cover development. [/opinion]

The path from sketch to 'on the shelf' is typically very expensive. Thus, my question. No offense intended.

 

[LandonL]

There was an initial surprise in this thread at the high cost, I don't see your asking price as being high enough to cover development. [/opinion]

The path from sketch to 'on the shelf' is typically very expensive. Thus, my question. No offense intended.

Well, it depends on their projected sales. I think the price is too high for the volume of sales needed to cover the cost of development and it continue to be sustainable. Going off her sales so far, over 2 years if they have sold 50 units, that is about 600k in revenue, or 300k/yr.

If this was done by a 1 man show, with outsourced manufacturing, then probably enough for him to cover his cost and make a little bit, but a larger development team and company behind it? Unlikely.

 

[KeithG]

Yulia: Can you clarify the required positioning of the buoys?

For optimal performance I assume the divers need to stay inside the perimeter of the buoys.

So what happens if a dive site is a wall? I can concede on some places it maybe possible to anchor 2 buoys in shallow water (not possible anywhere I dive) but the other side of the box is 5000 feet deep.

Maybe it would be useful to provide a description of best pratices for using the system under various conditions....

 

[Yulia]

Yulia: Can you clarify the required positioning of the buoys?

For optimal performance I assume the divers need to stay inside the perimeter of the buoys.

So what happens if a dive site is a wall? I can concede on some places it maybe possible to anchor 2 buoys in shallow water (not possible anywhere I dive) but the other side of the box is 5000 feet deep.

Maybe it would be useful to provide a description of best pratices for using the system under various conditions....

As I posted earlier, the system maintains adequate accuracy even when receiver is beyond the buoy figure for a distance not exceeding one and a half times the size of the buoy’s rectangle.
In your case it’s possible to use any intermediate variant. For example, two buoys in shallow water and two a little farther where it’s still possible to anchor them. For a more detailed recommendation we need more specific description of the water area.
Deployment instruction of the system will be available in the nearest future.

 

[njmorrell]

Why not just stick a GPS receiver on your SMB with a wire or acoustic modem to the diver?

 

[Yulia]

Why not just stick a GPS receiver on your SMB with a wire or acoustic modem to the diver?

If you fix the GPS-receiver on SMB, you will get its track and not yours, also the discrepancy between tracks will be the greater, the longer your cable will be.
About underwater acoustic modem - RedBASE buoys are actual digital underwater acoustic modems (transmitters) and RedNAV device is a receiver.

 

[CuzzA]

You guys are awfully critical of what appears to be a working system... albeit expensive. Remember some people paid $730 for the first CD player in 1982, an inflation adjusted equivalent of $1,815 in today's dollars.

 

[rmssetc]

Hmmm.....instead of anchoring the buoys, why not have them tethered to modified DPVs (ie., underwater drones)? The DPVs would receive GPS signals from each buoy, and actively maintain the buoy's position vs. current, much like a drillship. I'm guessing that the energy needed to maintain the buoy's position would be trivial compared to actually propelling a diver, so the DPV's battery would last much longer than the diver's gas supply or the RedWave receivers.

I could even imagine this being used for drift diving...deploy the 4 buoys in a fixed pattern (ie., a rectangle 200m on a side), and program the DPVs on each buoy to maintain that relationship between the buoys, even as each one is drifting (presumably on the same vectors). The divers within the rectangle of buoys would still receive real-time position information.

I'm also getting a nice breeze from all the hand-waving here as I make wild guesstimates about unfamiliar technology.

 

[KeithG]

You guys are awfully critical of what appears to be a working system... albeit expensive. Remember some people paid $730 for the first CD player in 1982, an inflation adjusted equivalent of $1,815 in today's dollars.

My fancy CD player perfectly played every CD I purchased over the next 20 years.

This system has some subtle limitations that should be openly discussed. It will not "play" every divesite...

 

[Yulia]

Hmmm.....instead of anchoring the buoys, why not have them tethered to modified DPVs (ie., underwater drones)? The DPVs would receive GPS signals from each buoy, and actively maintain the buoy's position vs. current, much like a drillship. I'm guessing that the energy needed to maintain the buoy's position would be trivial compared to actually propelling a diver, so the DPV's battery would last much longer than the diver's gas supply or the RedWave receivers.

I could even imagine this being used for drift diving...deploy the 4 buoys in a fixed pattern (ie., a rectangle 200m on a side), and program the DPVs on each buoy to maintain that relationship between the buoys, even as each one is drifting (presumably on the same vectors). The divers within the rectangle of buoys would still receive real-time position information.

I'm also getting a nice breeze from all the hand-waving here as I make wild guesstimates about unfamiliar technology.

Of course, we considered this option and with a high probability, it will soon be implemented. But you also need to understand that this will further increase the price of the product.