UWIS dive: Group dive under the ice cover

UWIS invited local divers to test the system's group dive features. Place Taivassalo, Finland.

 

Mission: Enjoying good diving and being together. At the same time, UWIS group dive features were tested, including automatic alarms, messages, waypoint control and, at the time, a new version of Navigator that shows the entire group on an underwater tablet.

Also the use of UWIS for the control of an inexpensive ROV was tested.

 

Watch video from here

UWIS group dive
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The quarry where the dives were carried out is well known to local enthusiasts. There you will find safety lines from the bottom and lots of interesting things to see.

It should be emphasized here that while UWIS allows free and wireless undewater navigation, none of the divers relied solely on it under the ice. All security arrangements and activities were performed as without it.

First, three openings were made and snow was removed between them. The open ice surface gives great light under the ice. This is a significant safety factor. The thickness of the ice was about 40 cm.

The water temperature was two degrees, visibility in the water about 15 meters and maximum depth about 19m.

The photos below show the placement of UWIS units and the pleasures of group diving.

Thank you for the photos and videos: Mikko, Jukka, Pinja, Tatu ja Ralf

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This is what the UWIS Tracker looked like when all divers started out. Each diver shows the alias name, depth and route line.

When the system generates or someone send alarm, the diver's mark starts flashing and the alarm appears on the left side of the stack. It only leaves from there with an acknowledgment.

The map also shows the locations of the buoys adn one predefined target "GEO". There you will find an underwater geocache to navigate with UWIS.

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Here's the same with the diver's eyes. The view is from the "Valtamer Navigator for UWIS" program on Alltab tablet. At that time, we did not yet use overlays for navigation backround. An overlay can be whatever georeferenced image like drone photo, drawing or map.

Diver will see his or her own information: location, depth, coordinates adn water temperature, as well as the locations, aliases and depths of others.

He also sees the message that come to him, indications of messages to others and he can send messages himself. UWIS supports a maximum of 100 stationary waypoints/markers and an equal number of so-called dynamic markers. The position of the latter can be changed from the surface during the dive, thus showing new targets to the divers.

The pictures below illustrates the situation where the diver sent an SOS alarm and how it was seen on the surface.

The first picture is where the diver gets confirmation to himself that an alarm has occurred. The second picture shows the general alarm first with UWIS Tracker and then immediately after who has sent it.

Then we quickly locate the diver by moving one of the buoys over the diver's placemark and drilling a hole in the ice. We hit the right spot with a meter accuracy. It took only two minutes from the alarm to the finished hole.

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Group photo below reminds us how enjoyable is to dive with bigger group.

Thank you all for the brilliand day and safe dives!

 

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