Computer aided piloting of a deeply towed vehicle |
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| Authors: | John D Mudie Kim A Kastens |
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| Institution: | University of California, San Diego Marine Physical Laboratory of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California 92093, U.S.A. |
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| Abstract: | An instrumented vehicle is towed at the end of a 5 km long cable, gathering data about the deep sea floor and near-bottom water column. Although bottom-moored acoustic transponders are used to determine the vehicle and ship positions precisely and in real time, predicting the ship manoeuvers required to bring the vehicle over an area of interest on the sea floor is far from trivial for the ship driver. Computer software has been developed which recommends courses for the ship to steer so that the vehicle will pass near a desired target. In trials at sea, the computer steered the vehicle 80, 40 and 85 m from pre-selected targets. Analysis of the causes of the misses suggests future developments which may reduce the miss distance, provide information on current structure of the water column, and reduce the level of skill and attention required of the vehicle pilot. |
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