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Nick
Experienced Roboteer
Joined: 16 Jun 2004
Posts: 11802
Location: Sydney, NSW
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There is a good "low tech" method that you could adapt and that is very in character for model warships. In WW2, the allies needed to fly at
exactly
the right hight over water when they released their dam buster bombs. Radar was out and it was all conducted at night, so optical bomb sights wouldn't work.
Some lateral thinker figured that triangulation was a great way to measure distance and fitted two spotlights front 'n back of the plane, angled down & towards each other. When the plane was at the right hight, the beams intersected on the water surface and formed a single spot.
In this example, the beam angle was fixed and the plane adjusted it's hight to aim it's bomb. In a ship's case, you would want to adjust the beam angle in sync with your gun elevation.
You could adapt that by aiming a fixed laser pointer horizontally and attaching a second laser to a servo that slaved off your gun elevation. It sounds fairly easy so far, but ther ewould be some complication with the parabolic flight path of your projectiles. That might be accomodated with a cleverly shaped cam or some electronics, but serious maths would be involved and that's where I check out.
Who said history couldn't teach us anything? _________________ Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion
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Tue Oct 04, 2005 8:59 pm |
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Spockie-Tech
Site Admin
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 3160
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Sonar *is* sonic range-finding.
Its just not often ultrasonic, since lower frequency waves are more useful in a water medium. Ultrasonic is good in air.
Sonar requires some pretty nifty signal processing though, especially in shallow water, where the distance to the bottom of the lake is probably less than the distance to the target.. you would get echo-returns from the bottom before the echo return from the boat.
All this is presuming we *are* talking about Philips "Big Guns" of course. We all might be barking totally up the wrong tree..
The big problem here is that as far as the sound waves are concerned, the boats dont look that different to the water. If they were made out of nice solid steel plates you could expect a good return, but thin balsa would be very iffy.
I think you will have to introduce some remote signal processing powered by a biological computer with visible wavelength optic sensors (eyes).
Nicks idea of converging laser beams sounds good, but it would only work if the opponent was on the far side of your boat. if they were between your boat and you, you wouldnt be able to see the spots converge since they would be on the other side of the opponents boat.
I doubt the ammo they use would follow any significantly curved ballistic path at the short ranges involved, or they probably wouldnt have enough penetration power.
I take it stepping up the laser power and burning holes in them would be seen as unsporting ? _________________ Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people
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Tue Oct 04, 2005 10:22 pm |
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