High Accuracy Underwater Surveying in Support of the U.S. Navy's Intermediate Scale Measurement System

Stewart Cannon, James Miller

Abstract:	The United States Navy is presently constructing an Intermediate Scale Measurement System in 370 m of water at Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho. The installation of this underwater, branched-cable structure requires three- dimensional relative positional accuracies of 10 cm in a 600 m radius circle. To support this effort and meet the strict survey tolerances placed on the project, special techniques, equipment, and procedures have been developed to achieve and verify system accuracy. Sound velocity, acoustic time-of-arrival, and pressure measurements all had to be made at the limit of achievable precision. To meet these guidelines, several novel and unique techniques were implemented to assist in this installation, including the use of a synthetic fiber vertical baseline to provide excellent geometry in three dimensions.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 1994 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation January 24 - 26, 1994 Catamaran Resort Hotel San Diego, CA
Pages:	859 - 868
Cite this article:	Cannon, Stewart, Miller, James, "High Accuracy Underwater Surveying in Support of the U.S. Navy's Intermediate Scale Measurement System," Proceedings of the 1994 National Technical Meeting of The Institute of Navigation, San Diego, CA, January 1994, pp. 859-868.
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