ION Technical Content
The Virtual Anchor
| Abstract: | In the Commercial Fishing Industry there exists the need for a Virtual Anchor for small and medium sized boats. This system was initially intended to replace a physical anchor for short duration parking of a boat during the harvesting of Lobsters or Crabs by commercial fishermen. Scuba Divers can also utilize the system to maintain their Dive Boat’s location over environmentally sensitive coral reefs, where physical anchors, which damage the reef, are prohibited. Day Party Fishing Boat Captains can also use the system to park their boat directly over known good fishing spots in deep water. A novel virtual anchor has been developed, installed and demonstrated aboard a 34 foot boat at sea. In calm seas, with disturbing wind forces of less than 10 knots, using a USCG Differential Beacon for corrections, the system maintained the boat’s bow position within a four meter radius. The one sigma standard deviation was approximately two meters during one hour anchoring trials. A production version of the system could be marketed for under $10,000. The DGPS based Virtual Anchoring system is both technically and economically feasible for commercial vessel operators. The bow positioning accuracy of the system is far superior to that obtained from a single physical anchor because it continuously corrects. The long “scope” of a conventional physical anchor line or “Rode” allows a boat to swing about a large radius unless multiple anchors are deployed. In the lucrative lobster harvesting application, the system price can be paid back within one annual harvesting season due to time savings from not deploying and recovering a physical anchor at each lobster habitat harvested. |
| Published in: |
Proceedings of the 8th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1995) September 12 - 15, 1995 Palm Springs, CA |
| Pages: | 913 - 918 |
| Cite this article: | Robertson, Glen, Webster, John, "The Virtual Anchor," Proceedings of the 8th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1995), Palm Springs, CA, September 1995, pp. 913-918. |
| Full Paper: |
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