Slashdot Mirror
New Sub Dives To Crushing Depths
University of Washington Scientists are reporting that they have a new autonomous underwater vehicle that increases both the attainable depth and duration of deployment over current submersibles. Weighing in at just under 140 pounds, the "Deepglider" is able to stay out to sea for up to a year and hit depths of almost 9,000 feet. "Deepglider opens up new research possibilities for oceanographers studying global climate change. The glider's first trip revealed unexpected warming of water near the ocean floor, and scientists are interested in studying whether the temperatures are related to global warming."
For those who don't speak ancient google translated it to be:
9 000 feet = 2 743.2 meters
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Go canucks, habs, and sens!
The oceans have always been a mystery to man, even in modern times. The fact that we can reach the summit of the highest point on Earth is wonderful, but we can't say the same about the ocean. It's been a theory of mine that if there are aliens on this planet that they would be at the bottom of the sea. Think about it, if they studied the planet they'd realise its mostly water. Ever seen The Abyss?
AC because mods piss me off.
you tie your pet project to Global Warming.
Doesn't matter how, just as long as you don't attempt to prove it wrong.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
How would global warming, if it even exists as people say it does, affect the temperature of water on the ocean floor?
Blerg.
The Marianas Trench is 35,813 feet (11521 metres) deep, according to the submariners who went to the bottom of it. So how is this new submersible in any way special?
Who the hell modded this troll? It's insightful! The water is deep in the ocean, closer to the earth's core... or does geothermal heat not exist in the mod's world?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I find it extremely unlikely that global warming is having any effect on the ocean floor. Head a mile off the coast of the pacific and swim down 20 feat. You'll notice a couple of things. One, it gets dark very quickly; meaning light doesn't get to travel far. Two, it gets very cold very fast; meaning the heat from the sun is not penetrating all that deeply.
To keep this on topic, cool submersible though. It would be incredible to really explore the very depths of the ocean just to see what kind of life we find. I'm sure there are many secrets waiting to be discovered.
Brendan
So, the very first question is weather this is related to global warming or not. What about.. Or it may be due to hot magma underneath or some previously unknown "conveyor belt"?
Not jumping to conclusions or anything, are we??
Scientists sell too. They need funding to feed their families and buy machines than go beep. They need to use teaser language to get people interested in their work to get funding.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The average heat flux from the earth is less than 0.1W/m2. Compare that to ~ 1000 W/m2 for the sun. Sure, it varies all over the place (see: volcanoes, etc.), but it's not a no-brainer where any heat anomalies the glider detected came from. In general, the deep ocean is quite cold because of that whole thermal expansion thing (also note that seawater is densest a few degrees above freezing (~4 deg C, if I recall). So heating from the bottom tends to cause convection.
You'll note that the scientists quoted don't mention global warming; they are excited to see stuff that they didn't expect. That's good enough to satisfy their intellectual curiosity & need to come up with new and interesting grant proposals.
You'll also notice that scientists in general don't sell newspapers or magazines. It's the journalists whose job it is to butcher the science to sell newspapers and magazines.
Finally, the oceans are very much tied up in our little carbon experiment. A good bit of any extra heat that is trapped in the atmosphere will go into the oceans. Also, a lot of the CO2 that we've emitted is already going into the oceans, which leads to ocean acidification. This is the rate of carbonic acid input (that's CO2 + H2O H2CO3 H+ + HCO3-) is much higher than the ocean can buffer it with CaCO3 (which buffers effectively, but only on very long time scales). In the meantime, hope you don't like coral.
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
I'm working in a buoyancy related problem so I have to point this out. From the full article: "When pressure compresses a hull in a traditional glider, it gains buoyancy and requires more energy to control." If it's compressed, the volume shrinks, it gains density and loses buoyancy.
I suppose it's insightful to the good portion of the ./ audience who fancies themselves armchair geologists, oceanographers, climatologists, astrophysicists, etc.
It's along the lines of the "duh, it's only the sun that's causing any warming, if there is any." (That's wrong, BTW).
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
Oops, ./ ate my brackets. I meant: CO2 + H20 <=> H2CO3 <=> H+ + HCO3- (bicarbonate)
Might as well go all the way: HCO3- <=> H+ + CO3- (carbonate)
Here's the carbonic acid scoop.
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
They're not interested in the absolute temperature, they're interested in the change in temperature over both short and long time periods. This type of data allows scientists to make predictions about future temperatures in many other locations (yes, ocean temperature will couple strongly to atmospheric temperature), and if there is enough data it allows them to describe climate change on the global scale.
The reason this matters, from TFA, is that this is a glider, not a submarine. It's cheaper, lighter, and more energy efficient than dropping a big ball to the bottom of the ocean. This thing can drive around and look at stuff very similarly to how a non-crush depth submersible could do.
stuff |
Did anyone even read the article(submitter included). This isn't a sub at all. It is the equivilant of a buoyancy controlled rock with sensors. It is cool stuff though, but these guys aren't gonna be using this thing to look at ship wrecks or follow sperm whales or anything.
How sad is it when a scientist sees something for the first time and rather than say 'I have no clue whay this is happening, I should study the reason this is happening' says 'This might be because of gloabal working, I should go look for a link'.
It always amazes me, that we (well, humankind that is, I can't take all the credit) managed to dive to almost 40,000 feet with the Challenger in *1951*, but haven't been back or deeper since! There is so much to explore on our own planet, and so much effort is being placed into going out into a vast, mostly empty vacuum, instead of looking under our own massive oceans, which are teeming with life (almost a new form, ever time we look at it).
The discoveries we are likely to make under our oceans, are undoubtedly going to be of far more relevance and benefit to our own lives on this little planet, that anything we find "out there." Yes, I think we should do both, but I think the depths of our oceans are severely and disproportionately neglected, except for the odd diving renegade.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
why is it that topics like global warming (and evolution for that matter), everyone thinks they know better than someone whom has (presumably) studied the topic for years by dismissing them as saying what they "cause it sells newspapers/magazines"?
i'm not saying that your theory is wrong (or that the scientist is right), but assessing validity between A) a random poster on
sorry, not to pick on you, but it amazes me how often politicians, theologians, pundits, etc., spout their opinions as if it carries more weight than someone who has dedicated their life studying the subject. if it turns out that science is wrong, then the truth will bear out, and any scientist worth their salt will be the first to say it's wrong -- i also suspect that most scientists *are* worth their salt.
modern science has benefited humanity in so many ways, yet people deny it when it goes against their opinions/politics.
mr c
"Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it." - R. Feynman
They're not interested in the absolute temperature, they're interested in the change in temperature over both short and long time periods.
Of course to measure the change you first have to measure the temperature at all. Then you wait a while and do it again.
Since they couldn't get there to measure it before this is that first measurement. Any comparisons are against models.
Meanwhile the definition of amount of information obtained is "how much it surprised the receiver".
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
when you think about it, though, saying that the "bottom of the ocean is closer to the earth's core than the surface of the ocean" is like saying "my ankle is closer to my head than my toes."
considering how far down the core is, I don't think it makes much of a difference.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
Yeah, all those darned scientist types are just slapping their brows going "D'oh! Of course! We should read Slashdot more often!"
Come on, these are people who have studied this stuff forever. You think they haven't accounted for brain-dead obvious, common-sense stuff like this?
The "Crush Depth" of a submarine is the depth at which it is crushed by the pressure.
Thus the headline translates to: New Sub Dives Deeper than other subs without being crushed
There are two kinds of people: 1) those that need closure
No, they made no such conclusion. They are only marking climate change as one possible explanation for differences between expected and measured values.
Any physical oceanographer (my wife happens to be one) will tell you that ocean temperatures are a very complex phenomenon. If the surface temperature of the ocean increased, it wouldn't be seen any time soon as an across the board increase in deep ocean temperatures, because the ocean doesn't vertically mix much in any locality. Instead, surface currents carry energy great distances horizontally, eventually cooling and sinking to drive deep ocean return currents.
Monitoring changes in deep ocean temperatures in many places is an interesting objective, because it might say a great deal about changes in ocean circulation patterns. The relationship between increased surface temperatures and deep ocean temperatures is more complex than it would be if temperatures simply diffuse downard. It is quite possible that in some places a global increase in surface temperature would cause temperatures to drop in some deep ocean localities.
You can no more make conclusions about global climate change from a single deep ocean location than you can from a single surface weather station.
IIRC, there already is robotic monitoring of deep ocean temperatures. Extending the reach of these programs will give us a more complete picture, which in turn can be used to validate or invalidate climate change scenarios. If you believe global warming is a sham, then obtaining a more complete picture is a good thing. It'll make faulty models harder to validate.
AFAIK, the radiative cooling of the Earth is a relatively minor contributor to ocean temperatures; however by looking at changes in temperature, especially across many places, then it can be effectively factored out.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I read a recent blog where a real scientist showed that hydrothermal vents could contribute as much as 0.0000343 K!
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
It not only sells newspapers, it wins Oscars!
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
modern science has benefited humanity in so many ways, yet people deny it when it goes against their opinions/politics.
Exactly! I couldn't agree more. Of course, it also needs to be said every time an article comes up where a scientist says something against the group-think, like "Global Warming is not man-made".
While it is OK to voice your opinion, I don't think it is OK to question the ethics of the scientists involved.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
From TFA:
"The energy-efficient, battery-powered glider carries sensors to measure oceanic conditions including salinity and temperature -- information that is key to understanding climate change."
Which sounds reasonable to me. No causality claims were made. These are scientists, with anomalous data which they're quite naturally curious about. That's what they do. Why are you so quick to assume that wild claims are being made? If it's magma, or a new conveyor belt, fine. Knowing about it is a Good Thing, as is nearly anything that may improve models, and allow more appropriate actions to be taken by one and all--people, companies, and nations.
What you do with a computer does not constitute the whole of computing.
Why do they think they have to toss in a comment on Global Warming?
Then...
Consider that the oceanic currents have cycle times measured in 1000's of years. Depending on where they are diving, if they are finding unexpected warming then this would mean that mankind would not be responsible for any presumed planetary warming... since the temperature of the water they are measuring was determined centuries ago.
However, closer examination of such a silly statment leaves one with a question... If they had to send this new fangled sub down to measure the temperature then what did they use before and if they didn't have anything to use before then did they really measure the temperature? If not - then one could say the temperature is unexpected but one could certainly not conclude it is warmer or colder since it hasn't been measured before.
Of course, I think the idea that Global Warming should be part of the story is kinda silly to begin with.
If I get modded down because of these observations then it just proves there is a huge knee jerk reaction going on by people who don't really think about things.
Wow, don't see you around much and certainly not since zzz went off-air. :)
Hope you are OK, if you ever reopen for business make sure you let slash know
liqbase
I hope you were trying to be ironic with your comment title.
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
I understand the concept of a crush depth. But the thing that gets crushed is the sub, not the depth. The headline is(was... looks like they fixed it) just miserable. Does no-one proofread any more?
This sub seems not to reach the depth the average ROV reaches
...More than half of the earth's ocean is deeper than 3000 meters, which is the current working depth of most of the ROV technology...
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROV
For those who don't know the fathoms, feet and furlongs, 9000 feet is 2743 meter.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
"You'll also notice that scientists in general don't sell newspapers or magazines. It's the journalists whose job it is to butcher the science to sell newspapers and magazines."
/. is a science-geek type crowd, but let's not pretend scientists are any more noble than the next guy.
You're kidding, right? I can think of many reasons a scientist could try and sell magazines. Fame and Grants come to mind rather quickly. I realize
The reason is because we have see the 'experts' being wrong all the time. A perfect example is the debate I was having just yesterday on the chicken pox vaccine. The experts will tell you how important it is to have your child vaccinated for chicken pox. They will tell you that it is important in reducing the mortality rate from chicken pox. What they don't tell you is that in the 12 years we have been using the vaccine, the average yearly drop in deaths has been 88. Not 88 per thousand. 88 in the entire US with a population of 300,000,000. What they will tell you is that the vaccine might need to have a booster shot administered in 20 years. What they leave out is that 18-25 year olds are massivly under insured, and prone to taking very high risks. What they conveniently leave out is that if a booster does end up needing to be administered, we could end up half of our adult population susceptible to a life threatening pox that is highly contagious and air born.
To put this in perspective, the number of deaths due to high school football averages to 30 a year. Given the dramatically lower exposure to playing high school football compared to chicken pox, the risk of death due to allowing your child to play football is in the rage of 100 times that of not getting vaccinated.
Now, I don't expect you to take my word for it. Go look up the numbers for yourself. Then go ask a bunch of 'experts' whether the vaccine is important or not. When you are done, you will understand why so many people feel they are qualified to argue with 'experts'. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me a hundred times, shame on me.
For the humor impaired: I'm aware a spell checker doesn't validate grammar.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those that need closure
Temperature in South African mines goes up about 12 deg C per km. Considering that global warming refers to a few degree change, I would call that a significant amount. Don't forget that there are hydrothermal vents on the bottom of the ocean near the hot spots.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
We have defeated the evil advocates of the metric system on every single front despite your best efforts. Your meters, your kilometers, your celsius - are all as popular and well known as is your strange game of soccer where men in shorts run around for hours never touching the polka dot ball with their hands. In America we don't learn no stinking metric system just like we don't learn no stinking foreign languages. So please take your amusing feelings of superiority and take your metric system bigotry and your conversion tables with you. We not only don't need any of it, we completely ignore it. :-P
You can take my twelve inch ruler when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
I am building a robotic min submarine for my masters thesis in computer science. I have learned a lot about fluid dynamics and systems control is hostile environments. The remote monitoring and control systems have been developed in G using National Instruments' LabVIEW while the mini sub itself is currently utilizing multiple 8 bit Microchip microcontrollers. Though even as I write this the design process has started for a prefab PCB board that will see these chips replaced by 32 bit Freescale (Motorola) MCUs capable of extending the processing power to a level that will present the capability of added functionality beyond anything we have even speculated upon.
At this point I am just getting to the point were I can remote control the mini-sub and it only has a minimalistic set of autonomous functions, such as calculating the power reserve requirements and automatically surfacing when power levels are such that just enough power remains to surface. Sounds simple but there is a lot of calculations that go into this since this is not a stationary object. I have just started coding what will become the basis for computer controlled / assisted navigation. Teaching a system to control the 8 control motors and ballast system is proving to be a daunting task. But I'm getting there. With a bit more help this project could be at a 1st level prototype phase in a few months. Alone with my current funding, mostly from my mentor / physics professor credit card and my own meager contributions, it will take 2 to 3 years to reach that point.
My immediate future plans are to add a tethered buoy platform for mounting of high gain antennas for communications and solar panels arrays for trickle charging of the battery systems.
The biggest problem is power. If I could go the route I want I would install a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) powered by 238Pu. 1kg of fuel could provide me with over 100 watts of continuous power for nearly a century. 238Pu (yes plutonium) is fairly safe (for a radioactive material) because in the very unlikely series of specific events that could result in a fission reaction it would become unstable and fizzle out before a chain reaction could occur. It is completely unusable for any kind of weapons grade nuclear device.
An RTG generates electricity from the heat produced from the natural decay of the radioactive material. With 1kg of 238Pu I would have to dissipate nearly 400 watts of heat for ever 100 watts of electricity produced but that's not difficult when your payload is cruising around the ocean depths.
I have been researching issues surrounding extreme pressure also. I am thinking that the best way to offset pressure would be to have the cavities of the submarine filled with a dense liquid like one of 3m's non-conductive fluorocarbons that has a low melting point but a high boiling point. This would add tremendous structural integrity to the sub and could be used as an alternative heat sink for the RTG in times when the fluorocarbon would be cooler than the surrounding water, such as close to the surface or the ocean floor were thermal venting is present.
All I need is a modest research grant from a university that is not afraid to enter into communications with the nuclear regulations committee and I would be ready to take this to the next step. A successfully prototype of a semi-autonomous mini-sub with the specifications I have described would have endless military and commercial applications and could bring major recognition to any university whole would sponsor (seek sponsorship) for such a project. I work in the lab that is 2 doors down from the nuclear storage facility at my current university but I have been informed that the future of my project could be in jeopardy if I seriously brought up the idea of constructing and powering a functional RTG.
Deep sea exploration is virtually wide open. Hardly any of our oceans have been surveyed especially at any significant depths. Working in this arena is one of the most excitin
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
That would cost you like 4,000 washing machines per month!
1.5 year of driving like that, and you could stack the US$ bills you'd spent to the Moon and back!
Take off every 'sig' !!
A good bit of any extra heat that is trapped in the atmosphere will go into the oceans.
If the heat came from the atmosphere, wouldn't it be detected in surface temperatures? This story seems to indicated the reverse: A good bit of any extra heat that is trapped in the ocean will leak into the atmosphere.
Heat from hydrothermal vents and other underwater volcanic phenomena heats the ocean water. The Juan de Fuca Ridge is in the pacific ocean along the Washington coastline, so I think it likely that this process is what the scientists' sub has detected.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
You'll also notice that scientists in general don't sell newspapers or magazines. It's the journalists whose job it is to butcher the science to sell newspapers and magazines.
Nevertheless, they live in the modern world we do and are not unaware of the power of sensationalism in science to loosen pursestrings to get paid to do not a whole lot, aka pure research. At this stage of the game where we're about three steps away from linking global warming to the supposed online pedophile predator crisis, no one should feel silly about being suspicious of anything scientists say.
Meanwhile, Johnny can't differentiate simple functions. But he will probably graduate with a degree in environmental science anyhow.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Same reaction I had. Hopefully, they aren't cruising somewhere down-current from a volcanic area when they brightly announce this. First time they got a thingi that can go really deep without breaking down, it can explore and poke around for a long time that deep, and the data all points to the evil global warming gremlin. I'm sincerely hoping the truth about the deep ocean will be stranger than we can imagine.
"I got it all together but I forgot where I put it."
I can think of many reasons a scientist could try and sell magazines. Fame and Grants come to mind rather quickly.
And at thirty magazine subscriptions, they get a brand new TI-84!
I was cooking on the grill today, and I started to feel warmer and warmer. It started getting so hot the meat cooked to a nice brown. Gobal warming ( thermaldynamics ) must be stopped! If only we could get another pop star to sing about the volcanic vents of the ocean caused by man!
All subs can dive to crushing depths. The problem is getting back up.
For scientists, the only thing sensationalism gets you is the ruthless mockery of your peers. For example, how did sensationalism work out for the Cold Fusion crew of Fleischmann & Pons?
Of course it helps your grant proposal to link your research to broader impacts, but sensationalism does not equal broader impacts.
Thanks a lot, big brain. (K. Vonnegut, "Galapagos")
revealed unexpected warming of water near the ocean floor
Said another way...we guessed what the temperature was going to be and we were wrong.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Interesting, but check this out http://www.cctechnol.com/ Since 2000, we've had an autonomous sub that can dive to 3000 meter for 50 hours. Currently, we are out testing our new 4500 meter version in the Gulf of Mexico. We run Solaris on a Sparc based cPCI chassis in our Payload sphere used to naviagate, collect data and control various sensors. In the Control sphere, implemented by our partner Kongsberg Maritime of Norway, we have a Control processor and Nav processor based on x86 technology. Communication between the Payload, Control and Nav processors is via corba. To date, with our two 3000 meter versions, we've done over 80,000 km of surveying world wide.
I may sound very stupid by saying this but the warmer temp. at the ocean floor...Couldn't that be caused by being closer to the earth's core?
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
Gosh, an open fissure. So what would happen if some underwatervulcano heated a spot on the seafloor with a few degrees. What would happen to the density of this water? Stay there?
In other words: if you heat a single spot of water on the seafloor the warmer water will rise up.
These guys measured the unexpected rise in temperature on every dive. Lots of fissures maybe?
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
In my time as a scientist-wanna-be (at Dartmouth, WHOI, MIT), I didn't see a lot of this. What I did see was a lot of tenuous connections in grant writing to whatever topics were hot at the time in funding circles. So yes, e.g. climatologists will find a way to link just about anything they want to research to climate change. But I think that's much more prevalent in grant-writing than in general discourse. Sure, there are some sensationalist scientists out there, but not a lot (name some, please?).
I wonder why you cast such aspersions on scientists (it makes it easier to ignore their inconvenient findings, I suppose?). Most of the scientists I ever worked with worked hard for much less than they could have earned in the private sector (which is a big reason why I'm in the private sector). And they valued precision and rigor, not sensationalism. Yeah, they're human like the rest of us, but I think your characterizations are flat out wrong.
Of course, as I have a degree in environmental engineering (undergrad summa cum laude, then NSF grad. research fellowship), maybe you struck a nerve with me. BTW I can differentiate. And integrate. Symbolically and numerically, even.
Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories
It's Zoidburg!
Staring at a white background [on a computer screen] while you read is like staring at a light bulb — Maddox
You can take my hummer when you prise my dead, obese body from from the driver's couch. Er, you insensitive clod.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
From the article: The glider's first trip revealed unexpected warming of water near the ocean floor, and scientists are interested in studying whether the temperatures are related to global warming.
"The maiden voyage was wonderful," says Charlie Eriksen, professor of physical oceanography at the University of Washington in Seattle. "On every dive we got within 10 meters of the bottom and we were able to see some interesting bottom temperature and salinity variations that we didn't know about, that I certainly didn't expect."
Had the variations not been there before and this was different? Is there that much information on the deep ocean that we can make such pronouncements? Or have they come across something else that simply demonstrates how little mankind really knows about the environment and why, by extension, the models used for climate prediction must be at least equally lacking?
Global warming, who cares? Stop making a mockery of science. Using resources efficiently is just good sense, why must there be a grander reason?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Yup. Yet another trolling moderator on the loose. Is this open fly season?
Sorry to branch off-topic here, but I'm glad people still remember it :)
I'm contemplating a new site with the same theme, now that I'm graduating and will have some free time. I think user-moderation has become an important part of community-driven sites, and the reincarnation of ZZZ would probably tap into that heavily. I'll certainly spread the word when it starts coming together.
Yup. Yet another trolling moderator on the loose. Is this open fly season?
What is this... they can't address the issue so they attack the poster? Ad hominem?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the person", "argument against the man") consists of replying to an argument by attacking or appealing to the person making the argument, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument.
The issue is how they can know the ocean bottom is actually warming? Where did tehy get their benchmark data from and if they have good data then how is this new data from the sub surprising?
> (also note that seawater is densest a few degrees above freezing
;-)).
> (~4 deg C, if I recall)
You are thinking of fresh water.
The density of seawater (e.g. with a salinity of 35) as a function of temperature increases with decreasing temperature (BTW, the article you linked to also mentions this
This graph (referenced by an article about arctic sea ice) shows that for seawater with a salinity greater than 24.7 the water freezes before it can get to the density maximum.
(The fact that sea ice floats seems to be related to density change due to phase transformation (sorry, no good source for that one)).
Damn that is a funny comment!
Hey sounds like your having fun! Keep up the good work!
Developing your system of management of the various systems is not that daunting though. Consider using a prioritized message queue. Each subsystem passes its various status messages into you main control queue and then is handled via an escalatable priority system.
Setting up autonimous operation is not that hard. The basis for your model is an aircraft autopilot, since you are controlling a vehicle that can move in all axises, up-down, left-right, pitch and roll. The main navigational issue is one of either dead reconing or inertial. Since you wont have an antenna above the surface , you need to know the amount of time -v- acceleration in 4 axises. Depth is a simple matter of a pressure gause. +- 44 psi per 100 feet of depth.
You will find that your main problem is keeping everything dry as hull penetrations are notoriously leaky. Make sure every opening uses sea pressure to keep its closing cap or what-not against the sealing surface ( o-ring or whatever.)
Your MPU will be your main issue. Calculating battery run-time is always going to be a guess, an educated one, but a guess nevertheless. Make sure your ballast control system does not require power from the MPU power system as well as the navigational computer. A mechanical fail safe is a plus. You can use CO2 cartridges on a mechanical piercing system to be the last resort ballast blow system.
Nuetral boyancy will be your other problem. Hull squeeze will always make you go more negatively boyant the deeper you go. Its a race condition that will lead you past your degin depth to crush depth unless you compensate. If the hull is rigid enough you can use your MPU to drive to a shallower depth.
ABOVE ALL ELSE, apply the KISS system liberaly!
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
Ad hominem.
I don't think his wife is Random and I doubt she thinks she is random either. What he wrote is correct. Furthermore his wife is an oceanographer, at least according to him. Are you going to question his knowledge of this too?
This reminds me of an argument I had with a stats prof (PhD) who claimed that a 4 byte floating point number in a computer could clearly carry more than 2^32 values. He went so far as to tell me what the range of the exponent was.
No - I was not one of his students, I worked with him.
I gave up. If he wants to believe in virtual bits then let him! He also didn't seem to know how I could stuff floats into an integer array and later pull them back out as floats and all this without losing any precision. You see, ints don't have a decimal right?
Your point is well taken. There are a lot of experts who really don't know all that much.
--------------
I also proofed a PhD thesis in mathematical geology where the author assumed at the outset that the rate of erosion would be porportional to the height of the mountains. Next he determined the amount of sediment buildup would be porportional to the rate of erosion. Later he did an integration and concluded that the rate of mountain building was exponential (this was his thesis!). Of course, he missed the fact that the definition of exp() is a function that grows at a rate porportional to its size... and I leave out many details.
The PhD was awarded. The person in question was a very good geologist mind you and had a spectacular career and has now passed away. I prefer not to name names.
But this does illustrate that there is a great deal of misunderstandings on the part of experts.
I tried on another post to enter brackets and gave up. How are they entered?
I have already implemented a prioritized message queue of sorts. All systems send their status. For systems that have boolean status on/off they represent a bit in a binary number. All of these devices combine to for a complete binary number. This is then converted into hexadecimal. All the other systems that have ranges of values, temperature (inside and out), pressure (inside and out), accelerometer(X and Y), etc are also converted from their native number system into hexadecimal. Through a mathematical computation these hexadecimal numbers are merged in such a way that there is no data loss.I then pass the data in intervals as 16 digit hexadecimal numbers. The LabVIEW program then unpacks the hexadecimal packets and presents the information in graphical form and records all the information so that it can be played back. Sort of a black box. The commands sent to the sub from LabVIEW follow the same communication method using hexadecimal representation. When I first came up with the idea of using HEX there were several people that were against it. Now that it is in use everyone brags on it. Several people working on other projects have had me help them develop similar communication protocols.
Of course, many of the autonomous functionality is controlled by the microcontrollers and subsystems. I am at the point to where I need the upgrade I spoke about earlier to get much more out of them. I am planning on using at least 4 32 bit Freescale microcontrollers. They have a lot of additional functionality built into the chips themselves. I will have 2 chips that have ALUs and will be capable or running embedded BSD Unix. The other 2 microcontrollers will pretty much take over the data acquisition and command parsing and the linux systems will form a highly available master control system. This is where the autonomous systems will be developed and ran. The Fresscale microcontrollers are very versatile with power management units that allow you to control the clock to reduce MHz when the system does not need to run at top speed. They have 3 power settings top speed, medium speed, and sleep mode. I will be able to put the subsystem microcontrollers into sleep mode and put the BSD chips into low speed when inactive to conserve energy and control heat. They have on dye Ethernet simplifying and speeding up the communications systems drastically. The current system runs through wireless Ethernet but it requires additional IC that converts TTL to Ethernet and then a WiFi bridge takes it wireless. The TTL portion really limits the speed at which data can be transmitted and received. I'll still need the bridge but since the microcontrollers have true Ethernet we won't be tied to TTL speed any longer. Also, intercommunication between the controllers will be greatly increased since they have PCI bus. If I can get help with the driver I would like to run IP over PCI. If not I'm sure I can you the low level PCI calls for intercommunication. As you can see I am very excited about getting this upgrade and could talk forever about it. So, I'll just say that once I get the new board integrated into the system things will really start to advance at an accelerated rate.
The video is sent as stream that LabVIEW converts through a A/D converter and displays the video on the control panel while recording it to disk. It's setup so that everything can be played back. Single frames can be snapped and saved as gif images. All the video is saved but it's also setup so that segments of the video can pulled out and saved as mpg. The video data that is stored in the black box style is in RAW data format.
The accelerometer can display where it is currently located on a map on the control panel or display a route of where it has been. Data from the accelerometer also displays speed and of course acceleration. The data is used to graphical display the sub's current orientation. The pressure gauge data is used to keep an eye on structural integrity (leaks) since the sub is pressurized. I have not had th
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
Well, fathom that....
Actually, that should be global cooling. Since oceans are closer to the molton innards which is nasty rock melting hot still, it's obviously a bit of a thermal leak and when the heat leaks out, the remaining material cools down. Note that some heat is residual (or perhaps may be regenerated by some sort of natural nukular (w.r.t. gw bush) reactor at the core) and some heat is doubtlessy cause by the shifting of tectonic plates and the gravitational effects of sun and moon. However, it is reasonable to assume that that we do have global cooling going on and that eventually, the core will solidify. When that happens, we can probably say adios to our magnetic field and when that is gone, it's probably gonna get rather cloudy and cold, at least until our atmosphere gets mostly stripped away by the solar wind. All this probably occurs long before the sun turns red giant and creates some major bit of global warming around here - before we're totally evaporated. At that point, we're likely due to be blown out in a pretty, colorful planetary nebula (nothing to do with planets - just misnamed long ago), perhaps a bit like the Dumbbell nebula (sorry algore).
Grant Writing 101. Make sure that, in the final paragraph, you claim the research is "potentially" related to whatever the fundingg agency is funding this month.
What pray tell are they measuring this "unexpected warming" against? Considering this is a new sub diving to new depths never reached before I'd love to know how they know the water down there is warming. They shouldn't HAVE any data for temperatures down that far.
This vehicle can go down deep and stay there for up to a year? Has this vehicle been tested for a year?
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.