A SHIPBOARD NAVIGATIONAL AND GEOPHYSICAL PROCESSING SYSTEM 



by 



Carl O. Bowin 

 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 

 Woods Hole, Massachusetts 

 02543 



INTRODUCTION 



Technological developments in the last five years have made it practi- 

 cal to collect large amounts of bathymetric, gravity, and magnetic infor- 

 mation during a single cruise. The reduction of these data involve the 

 processing of a similar amount of navigational information. It is difficult 

 for analysis to keep pace with the collection at present, and without the 

 utilization of modern data processing techniques it will become increas- 

 ingly so. Since June 1962, the Geophysics Department of the Woods Hole 

 Oceanographic Institution has used a digital computer (IBM 1710) aboard 

 the Research Vessel CHAIN for the real-time collection and processing of 

 navigational and geophysical data. This system was developed by the 

 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The engineering design and com- 

 puter programming was accomplished by the International Business 

 Machines Corporation under subcontract to Woods Hole. This project was 

 supported at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution under Contracts 

 Nonr-1367(00) and Nonr-4029(00) with the Office of Naval Research, 

 Department of the Navy. Our goal is to accomplish at sea as much data 

 analysis and interpretation as possible while the investigation is being 

 conducted. 



DATA PROCESSING SYSTEM 



The first shipboard system consisted simply of an analog-to-digital 

 converter, a digital computer, a console typewriter, and a paper-tape 

 reader and punch (Bernstein and Bowin, 1963; Bowin, 1963). The system 

 automatically sampled the ship's heading and speed, two inputs from a 

 shipboard gravity meter, and switches manually set the depth of the water. 

 Ship's position information was inserted via manual entry switches that 

 are standard equipment on the IBM Analog to Digital Converter (1711). 

 Only the water-depth switches were remote from the computer system 



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