RU2593651C1 - Hydroacoustic method for location of autonomous underwater vehicles - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: navigation.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to underwater navigation and more specifically to determination of position of underwater object using hydroacoustic navigation system. Solution is based on domestic components and does not require high costs. Method for recording location of vehicle employing Pinger system makes it possible to build its trajectory relative to support vessel.

EFFECT: technical solution for location of underwater vehicle equipped with Pinger system, and monitoring of its position relative to support vessel, as well as detection of it by diver.

1 cl, 2 dwg

Description

The invention relates to the field of underwater navigation, and more specifically, to determining the location of an underwater object using a sonar navigation system. The invention can be used, for example, to determine the direction and distance to an underwater object, an autonomous or remote-controlled vehicle, as well as the location of the bottom station.

There is a method of navigation with an ultrashort base [1], where the test area of the water area is coordinated by three acoustic beacons by transponders with which the underwater vehicle interacts, receiving a request and transmitting its acoustic signal, and the beacons transmit to the vessel ensuring their distance from the vehicle. On the vessel, the coordinates of the device are calculated as the point of intersection of the three spheres. The known method is cumbersome, requires a large investment of ship time for deployment and roads in operation.

Closest to the claimed method [2], where a transponder-pinger transponder is installed on the underwater vehicle, and a transponder with an antenna and an acoustic generator that generates a request pulse, capturing the request pulse, transponder responds with its pulse. Measuring half the time interval between the request and response pulses, determine the distance to the location of the underwater vehicle.

The known method has the disadvantage that it is not able to determine the coordinates of the location of the apparatus, and also must expend energy on moving the weight of the transponder.

The proposed solution, as a set of essential distinguishing features, will allow us to avoid these drawbacks associated with the need to place bulky and energy-intensive devices in the form of transponders on the underwater vehicle and the costly installation of transponder beacons on the ground, which will allow quick search and monitoring of the operation of the underwater vehicle.

The technical result expected from the use of the invention is the elimination of these disadvantages, i.e. providing the ability to determine at least the approximate location of the underwater vehicle for more precise coordination of it on the bottom soil with a variable topography.

This goal is achieved by the fact that in the known hydroacoustic method for determining relative to a vessel the location of an autonomous underwater vehicle equipped with an acoustic emitter, which is set as a pinger [3] that emits continuously standard periodic signals, the beginning of which is previously synchronized with a ship generator of similar reference signals, the pinger signals are received by the ship's antenna, amplified and transmitted to the input of the time displacement meter (mixer), and to the second input of which supplies the reference signals of the ship generator, where they are compared with the received pinger signals of the same name and, thus, their time offset ΔT relative to the reference signals of the same name is calculated, multiplying that by the speed of sound “c”, we obtain the distance “R” along the beam from the pinger to antenna:

R = ΔT * c,

at the same time, using the ship’s dipole type receiving antenna with an explicit “min” radiation pattern and rotating it relative to the vertical axis, the bearing of the pinger of the underwater vehicle relative to the ship’s coordinates is recorded from the min of the amplitude of the received signal, and using the ship’s echo sounder, the depth of the water area h , then from the geometric construction of a right triangle, where R is the hypotenuse, h is the leg, and the second leg is defined as lying on the horizontal surface of the bottom, which together with the bearing angle determines rientirovochnye relative coordinates of the submersible vessel.

The invention is shown in FIG. 1 and 2. The proposed method is implemented as follows. Installed on the supply vessel 1, a generator of reference standard signals 2 of the same frequency as pinger 3 on the underwater vehicle 4 is turned on simultaneously with the pinger. Thus, both sources are synchronized. Their radiation is fed to two inputs (Vh.1 and Vkh.2) of the time displacement meter 5, which can be integrated into the ship’s measuring unit together with the generator 2. Moreover, the unit 5 has a hydrophone antenna 6, through which the pinger signal is received, and fed to the second input (Вх.2) of the displacement meter, where both signals of the same name are compared, and the magnitude of their displacement (ai pinger signal delay ΔT) is determined. To receive pinger signals, an antenna of a hydrophone 6 of a dipole type with a pronounced minimum of 7 and having a drive 8 for rotation around a vertical axis is used. This allows you to determine the direction of α (peeling) to the underwater vehicle in horizontal projection by the "min" 7 signal from the pinger. At the output of the mixer, a cyclogram of FIG. 2 registration of the position of the generator pulses and incoming pinger pulses, which allows to register ΔT the delay of the pinger pulses relative to the corresponding generator pulses.

All vessels are equipped with a depth gauge. Most often it is an echo sounder. The value R _i = ΔT _i * c, where c is the speed of sound in water (1500 m / s), is the distance from the antenna to the pinger along the beam at i - the point in time for which the echo sounder determines h _{i the} depth of the horizontal bottom, then from the geometric constructing a right triangle, where R _i and h _i, respectively, hypotenuse and cathetus, it is possible to build a position of the underwater vehicle. It cannot be called “exactly coordinates”, because the bottom topography is not a horizontal plane, but approximately (up to the scale of the curvature of the topography) the localization of the underwater vehicle can be determined and its search, for example, by a diver is greatly facilitated. Recently, the number of underwater vehicles has grown so much that we can talk about the direction in the industry, and the owners are interested in the possibility of searching and saving an expensive product.

As a support vessel, a diving or expeditionary vessel of the Achamba or Rift type and others is usually used. A JJ-CONNECT Fisherman 130 or digital GSD22 depth sounder can be used as a marine echo sounder. For the basis of the time displacement meter, you can use a two-beam oscilloscope of type C1-55 or a multipath storage type C8, C9 [4] storage oscilloscopes. The latter are preferable, because allow synchronously with the cyclogram to fix the ship's heading and bearing to the apparatus. As an accessible pinger for such an apparatus, using a standard pinger, such as, for example, ELP-362A, which emits acoustic pulses at a frequency of 37.5 kHz with a period of 1 s, which makes it possible to uniquely determine the distance to underwater objects at a distance of up to 750 m for GNOM vehicles "Or" Video ".

The above essential features make it possible to avoid cumbersome technologies, provide a simple search and tracking of the location of the underwater vehicle and determine the distance to it.

Information sources

1. HANS UKB http://edboe.ru/. OKB FROM.

2. Acoustic Target Transponder ATT-400

http://www.rjeint.com/templates/theme1577/pdf/ATT400-RevB.pdf.

3. Pinger ELP-362A. http://pdf.nauticexpo.com/pdf/teledyne-benthos/locator-product-catalog-2012/40202-49557.html#open.

4.http: //www.priborstandart.ru/about/#SITE_DIR#. LLC "Device - Standard".

Claims (1)

A hydroacoustic method for determining the location of an autonomous underwater vehicle equipped with an acoustic emitter relative to the support vessel, characterized in that in the known hydroacoustic method for determining the position of the underwater vehicle relative to the vessel, a pinger emitting continuously standard periodic signals, the beginning of which is previously synchronized with the ship, is installed as an emitter generator of similar reference signals, while pinger signals are received by ships antenna, amplify and transmit to the input of the time displacement meter (mixer), and to the second input of which the reference signals of the ship generator are fed, where they are compared with the received pinger signals of the same name and, thus, their time offset ΔT relative to the same reference signals is calculated, multiplying which at the speed of sound "s", get the distance "R" along the beam from the pinger to the antenna:
R = ΔT * s,
at the same time, using the ship’s dipole type receiving antenna with an explicit “min” radiation pattern and rotating it relative to the vertical axis, the bearing of the pinger of the underwater vehicle relative to the ship’s coordinates is recorded from the min of the amplitude of the received signal, and using the ship’s echo sounder, the depth of the water area h by means of which, from the geometric construction of a right triangle, where R is the hypotenuse, h is the leg, and the second leg is the projection of the hypotenuse R onto the horizontal bottom surface, which together with the swaddle angle ha determines the location and approximate relative to the vessel coordinates of the underwater vehicle.

Images