Date of Award

6-2017

Document Type

Open Access

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

Department

Electrical Engineering

First Advisor

Takashi Buma

Language

English

Keywords

dive computers, accelerometers

Abstract

The top five dangers in diving are marine life, malfunctioning equipment, asphyxiation, pulmonary embolism, and nitrogen narcosis. These risks exist even with the current standards of diving equipment. Most of these risks can be attributed to a lack of information, either due to inattention or because the information is not accessible to the diver. The current solution to these risks are dive computers, wearable devices around the diver's wrist which provides numeric displays of various information. One value the devices do not display is orientation. These devices also have insufficient methods of warning the user. As such a device is proposed to work in tandem with dive computers to both provide a measurement of orientation and a better method of warning the diver. This proposed method is a device placed inside the diver's dive goggles. This allows the device to constantly warn the user by always being in the diver's peripheral vision. The proposed solution uses an accelerometer to provide values for orientation, a value not present in dive computers. By constantly displaying orientation to the diver, the diver will know where to go even if they become disorientated due to nitrogen narcosis. This solution also uses the accelerometer to measure vertical acceleration to provide a warning for pulmonary embolism, as well as uses a timer found in the processor to warn the user if they are running out of oxygen. These values are then displayed using a series of multicolored LEDs around the dive goggles. After initial testing it was found that using the accelerometer to measure vertical acceleration is not a valid option. This is due to the vertical acceleration limit heavily depending on the depth of the diver as well as the time spent at each depth. For the final design, a constant LED display of orientation as well as time remaining was successfully implemented in a dive mask with a price point reasonable to work in tandem with the current dive computers. This resulted in a device that can mitigate the risks of nitrogen narcosis, the most dangerous risk of diving not that the current dive watches ignore, as well as asphyxiation. While not being fully tested for underwater use, due to all the necessary components fitting inside the dive mask, it should be possible to create a fully waterproof electronic dive mask.

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