Mobile pond aerating system

A system for aerating in a programmed manner the desired areas of a water pond to enhance the environment for marine life in the pond; said system including a propelled boat with an aerator mounted thereon and having direction control apparatus including a rotating beam-sending component, a plurality of beam-reflecting posts located in predetermined fixed relationship around the shore line of the pond, and a beam-receiving component mounted on the boat to receive the beam reflected back from each of the reflecting posts, whereby the position of the boat can be determined automatically by angle determining components combined with a microprocessor programmed to calculate by triangulation computation the position of the boat and produce a signal which is connected to a servo system which controls the direction of travel of the boat in its aerating path around the pond.

SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION 
This invention provides an automatic programmed system for discharging a 
highly oxygenated water and air flow from a boat into the water in a pond 
to aerate an entire area of the Pond in a predetermined programmed manner. 
The control system includes a locating system which incorporates a 
signal-sending component such as a rotating laser beam source combined 
with a plurality of reference reflectors and a rotating reflected beam 
receiver which produces a signal which is delivered to a microprocessor 
programmed to provide a location indicating signal which actuates a 
steering control mechanism to correct the course of the boat.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic view of our aerating system and shows a body of 
water A with a shoreline B on which four reflector posts 10, 11, 12, and 
13 (shown in FIGS. 1 and 4) are mounted in fixed, upstanding relation. All 
four reflector posts are of identical construction and each includes a 
plurality of mirror segments shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 in which post 10 is 
identified and the mirror segments are identified by the reference 
character 10a as being typical of the construction of all four posts. Each 
post will be positioned vertically and the mirror segments mounted thereon 
will all lie in a vertical plane, so that the horizontal beams from a 
laser generator on the boat (to be described) will be reflected back 
horizontally. A suitable boat such as the pontoon boat C is provided, 
having a pair of pontoons 15 with a suitable housing 17 mounted thereon. 
The housing includes a power plant and system for producing an aerating 
discharge through a nozzle 18 shown by dotted lines in FIG. 1. The power 
plant and nozzle disclosed and claimed in copending application for U.S. 
Pat. No. 4,522,151 (Ser. No. 475,074, filed Mar. 14, 1983), invented by 
Dominic S. Arbisi and Coy E. Replogle, has proved satisfactory for this 
purpose. In the form of the invention shown, the aerating jet discharge 
from the nozzle 18 forms the propelling force for moving the boat C around 
the pond. A rudder 19 is provided to steer the boat C. FIG. 2 illustrates 
a typical aeration path which is represented by the dotted lines 35. 
CRAFT LOCATING MECHANISM 
The craft locating mechanism includes an electric motor 100 which rotates a 
mirror 102 at a selected suitable rotational velocity such as 
approximately one revolution per second. A laser beam is emitted from a 
suitable laser source 103 such as a helium-neon laser identified as Model 
1108 and manufactured by Uniphase Corporation of Sunnyvale, Calif. and is 
reflected by the rotating mirror 102 in a horizontal direction, which in 
turn, is reflected back to the rotating mirror by the respective reflector 
posts 10, 11, 12, and 13. When the beam reflected back from the post again 
strikes the rotating mirror 102, it will be reflected vertically into a 
suitable photoelectric detector 105 such as a red optimized photo diode 
identified as Model OSD 100-2 manufactured by Centronic, Inc., of Mountain 
Side, N.J. The signal output of the detector 105 is amplified by amplifier 
107 and is then read by the microprocessor 106. A suitable encoder-counter 
101 such as an optical incremental encoder identified as Model VOE-11 
manufactured by Vernitech, a division of Vernitron Corporation of Deer 
Park, N.Y., is connected to the rotating mirror 102 to produce a signal 
which indicates the the angular position of the rotating mirror 102 at the 
time the return reflected beam was received. This produces a first 
locating signal. Since the mirror 102 is rotating through complete 360 
sweeps during each revolution, the reflected beam back from the successive 
reflector posts 10, 11, 12, and 13 will locate the angular relationship 
between each post and the craft and will thus permit the microprocessor 
106 to calculate, by its triangulation program, the position of the craft 
at each second of time during its travel around the programmed course. 
CRAFT DIRECTION CONTROL MECHANISM 
The desired path of travel for the boat C is preprogrammed into the 
processor 106 through the operator interface 108 and will be stored in the 
processor memory 109 of the microprocessor. This programmed path in the 
microprocessor 106 will produce a reference signal at any moment of time 
to indicate the desired position of the craft at that moment. The signal 
produced by the craft locating mechanism described above will then be 
compared to the desired position in the microprocessor and the increment 
of error obtained by subtracting the two signals will produce a control 
signal fo returning the craft toward its desired path of travel. 
In order to establish the orientation of the boat, that is, the direction 
it is pointing, a home base reference must be established. The home base 
location is identified by the reflective posts 12 and 13 of FIG. 2 which 
are located in close proximity and which will be separated by only a small 
angular differential between those two reference posts. When the direction 
the boat is pointing relative to the home base location, the 
microprocessor will then produce the necessary corrective signal response. 
The difference between the actual course direction and the desired course 
direction is calculated by the microprocessor 106 and the signal will be 
used to control the position of the rudder 19 by its reversible servomotor 
110. The error indicating signal in the course direction will be converted 
into a digital word by the processor 106 and will be fed into a 
digital-analog converter (DAC) 113. The output from the DAC is amplified 
by amplifier 114 and is then fed to the reversible motor control 
servomotor 110. As the motor 110 rotates, the position of the rudder 19 
will be adjusted to cause the craft to correct its direction toward the 
desired course. The rotary position of the motor 110 is monitored by the 
microprocessor 106 by means of an encoder/ counter 112 which is coupled to 
the rudder motor 110 and the micro-processor 106 will, of course, maintain 
the rudder position whenever the boat is on course. 
CRAFT VELOCITY CONTROL MECHANISM 
The microprocessor 106 will also calculate the velocity of the craft by 
comparing the craft's actual position at two points in time and dividing 
the difference by the time that has elapsed: 
##EQU1## 
The microprocessor 106 will then compare this actual velocity with a 
pre-programmed velocity stored in memory 109. The difference between 
actual and desired velocity is the velocity error and will be used as the 
basis for the velocity control device. The velocity error is converted 
into a digital word by the microprocessor 106 and is written into a 
digital-analog converter 118. The output of the DAC 118 is amplified by 
amplifier 119 and fed to the velocity control servomotor 116 to energize 
the motor. The rotary position of the motor 116 is accessed by the 
microprocessor 106 via the counter/encoder 117 coupled to the servomotor 
116. When the craft C is traveling at the desired velocity, the velocity 
error will be zero and the resulting digital word will be zero and the 
servomotor 116 will stop. 
It is to be understood that while there has been illustrated and described 
certain forms of the present invention, the invention is not to be limited 
to the specific form or arrangement of parts herein described and shown 
except to the extent that such limitations are found in the claims.