R/V Knorr Shipboard Computing: Other Data Acquisition Resources

There is a 150 KHz narrowband acoustic doppler current profiler (ADCP) aboard the ship with its display in the Main Lab. This system can be configured to use RD Instrument’s Transect or DAS data acquisition software. Data is logged on Mike in an exported directory so it can be read in near real time over the network. The ADCP has heading information supplied by the ship’s gyro, and Knorr has an Ashtech attitude sensor which supplies additional heading, pitch and roll information (post-processing is required to integrate ADCP and Ashtech data).

Navigation information is available from P-Code GPS and multiple standard GPS receivers (differential when within shore station range). The information is distributed throughout the ship as RS232 data in real time.

Two GPS-based precision clocks provide time synchronization via XNTPD ver 4.1 to several network time servers (Mike, ftp and Seanet). These servers broadcast time over the network, and precision is typically +/- 1 millisecond.