THE NAREF BUOY, A DEEP-SEA NAVIGATION AID

NAREF is a concept of a buoy design for navigation reference to be moored preferably in deep-sea areas to back up positioning of survey-vessels, where landbased radionavigation aids do not yield sufficient accuracy. The buoy is carrier of additional radionavigation systems to allow a considerable improvement in accuracy of positioning to the survey vessel. The layout of NAREF concept is to grant a considerable circle of movement of the buoy about the anchoring point and therefore it requires a relatively simple mooring system. Two versions are proposed to overcome the problem of diluting accuracy of positioning due to movement of the buoy. One applies to the implementation of the system in areas with relatively constant wind and current conditions, like the trade wind zones. Here the position of the buoy is traced by mutually surveying it's position and drift rate during satellite fixes by the ship and back up the position of the vessel by data received from the buoy between satellite fixes. Another approach, which desires additional hardware expense, will permanently trace the deviaton of the buoy's position system. This system will give a real-time information of the buoy's movement improving the overall accuracy and breaking up the environmental limitation of steady wind and current conditions. The NAREF-concept shall be a back up for integrated navigation systems employing Satellite-Sonar-Doppler and groundbased navaids, as they are state of the art, which normally do not yield the desired accuracy for certain survey missions in deep waters and far off landbased radio-navaids.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Paper presented at the 9th Annual OTC Conference in Houston, Texas, May 2-5 1977.
• Corporate Authors:

  Offshore Technology Conference

  6200 North Central Expressway
  Dallas, TX  United States  45206
• Authors:
  • Sender, F K
• Conference:
  • Paper presented at the 9th Annual OTC Conference in Houston, Texas, May 2-5 1977.
• Publication Date: 1977

Media Info

• Features: References;
• Pagination: p. 39-48

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Navigational aids; Position fixing; Radio navigation
• Old TRIS Terms: Acoustic position finding
• Subject Areas: Marine Transportation; Operations and Traffic Management;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00158268
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Offshore Technology Conference
• Report/Paper Numbers: V2, OTC 2812 Proceeding
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 31 1977 12:00AM