An Integrated Interactive Navigation Program for Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicles and Inhabited Submersibles.
Louis L. Whitcomb and James C. Kinsey
Dynamical Systems and Control Laboratory
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Johns Hopkins University
DVLNAV is an interactive program for precision 3-D navigation of underwater vehicles, developed by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. DVLNav employs a bottom-lock Doppler sonar and a North-seeking gyro to compute accurate vehicle XYZ displacements in a true—North coordinate grid, and is equipped to initialize the bottom track wither from a Long-Baseline acoustic navigation system or from manual input. The navigation software, supported under Windows, provides an interactive user-interface providing real-time displays of all sensor information, sensor status indicators, and a moving map-display with real-time vehicle outline, shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: DVLNAV Screen shot showing actual closed-loop tracking performance of Jason II during July 2002 field trials at 1650m depth on the Juan de Fuca Ridge. Click on image for full-size screen shot.
DVLNav displays vehicle positions in XY, Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM), or Latitude/longitude coordinates. Sensor status screens provide detailed status of each serial sensor device. All sensor data and vehicle navigation data is automatically time-stamped and logged to ascii-readable data files. DVLNAV was first deployed on the 6000m remotely operated vehicle DSL120A, the 6500m remotely operated vehicle JASON II and on the 4500m inhabited submersible DSV Alvin, both developed and operated for the U.S. oceanographic research community by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. DVLNAV is also deployed on the JHU ROV developed at JHU's Dynamical Systems and Control Laboratory.
Figure 2: DVLNAV is presently deployed on the new DSL120A (left) a 6000m vehicle developed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and on the JHU ROV (right) developed at the Johns Hopkins University.
The system presently supports a variety of navigation sensors including:
Various additional NMEA navigation and oceanographic sensors such as altimeters, CTD, etc.
Figure 3: DVLNAV is presently deployed on Alvin, a 4500 meter Deep Submergence Vehicle developed and operated the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for the U.S. oceanographic research community. Left image shows DVLNAV co-author James Kinsey and Alvin aboard the R.V. Atlantis in Bermuda, June 2001. Right image shows 1200 Khz RDI Workshorse Navigator (green face with four round transducers) mounted in Alvin’s tail-cone.
DVLNAV produces FOUR types data files:
Simple comma-delimited 1-second data file: .CSV suffix, logs time-stamped navigation and sensor data at 1 second intervals. One file per day. 1 MB/hour. Compresses 5:1. Loads directly into spreadsheets (Excel, Quattro Pro, etc.) Example file.
Comprehensive DSL Format Data file: .DAT suffix, logs ALL sensor and processed data, timestamped to 0.001 second. One file per hour, 60 MB/Hour. Compresses 10:1. Requires AWK/GREP and MATLAB to process. Supports planned renavigation capability. Example file.
Screen Shot JPEG File: .JPEG suffix. Timestamped (to the second) screen shot image of the DVLNAV screen. 500 KB/Image. Created when you press the “screenshot” button. Press the button, Max! Example File.
Hourly system configuration (INI file): Logs DVLNAV internal configuration once an hour. 6 KB. Example file.
The file format specifications are available here, see below.
DVLNAV is free to the UNOLS oceanographic research community and use in non-commercial academic research projects. We like to keep track of who is using DVLNAV, so if you download DVLNAV as a courtesy we request that you let us know who you are and how you will be using DVLNAV. An email to Louis Whitcomb, llw@jhu.edu, will do.
You can install DLVNAV on your PC and run it in simulation mode to get a sense of what the program looks like when you are actually at Sea with an ROV or Alvin. In an upcoming release, you will be able to play-back and re-navigate logged dive data.
The principal Authors of DVLNAV are Professor Louis Whitcomb, llw@jhu.edu, and his Ph.D. Student James Kinsey, jkinsey@jhu.edu, of the Dynamical Systems and Control Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University.
Dana Yoerger, Ph.D., dyoerger@whoi.edu, Associate Scientist and Director of the Deep Submergence Lab, Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who got us all interested in Doppler navigation in the first place, and who graciously provided the LBL solution code that he originally developed for ABE for use in DVLNAV.
Hanumant Singh, Ph.D., hsingh@whoi.edu, Assistant Scientist, Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution was instrumental in instigating the our collaboration with the Alvin group, and in the initial DVLNAV deployment in 2001.
Andy Bowen, abowen@whoi.edu, Director of the Jason Group, Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, for having the faith that we could make this work on Jason and the other DSL ROVs.
Barrie Walden, bwalden@whoi.edu, Director of the Alvin Group, Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, provided the leadership to make the Alvin Doppler program a reality supported by NSF.
Bob Brown, rbrown@whoi.edu, Alvin Chief Pilot Blee Williams, blee@atlantis.whoi.edu, Alvin Expedition Leader Pat Hickey, phickey@atlantis.whoi.edu, and Dudley Foster, dfoster@whoi.edu, of the Alvin Group, Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, provided invaluable collaboration in defining the original DVLNAV functional specification, and in providing continuous feedback and critical insight through many revisions of the system.
Dan Fornari, Ph.D., dfornari@whoi.edu, Senior Scientist, Department of Geology & Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, for leading the charge to obtain and deliver quantitative scientific data with deep submergence vehicles.
Robert D. Ballard, Lawrence E. Stager, Daniel Master, Dana Yoerger, David Mindell, Louis L. Whitcomb, Hanumant Singh, Dennis Piechota. Iron Age Shipwrecks in Deep Water off Ashkelon, Israel. American Journal of Archaeology, 106(2):151-168, March 2002.
Robert D. Ballard, Anna Marguerite McCann, Dana R. Yoerger, Louis L. Whitcomb, David A. Mindell, John Oleson, Hanumant Singh, Brendan Foley, Jonathan Adams, Dennis Picheota, and Cathy Giangrande. The discovery of ancient history in the deep sea using advanced deep submergence technology. Deep Sea Research Part 1, 47(9):1591-1620, September 2000.
