Thursday, September 07, 2023
Meeting Time: 7:00 pm
Online event (via Zoom): Please register on meetup.com to obtain the Zoom link.
Lecture
For centuries mariners have dealt with the problem of finding their way from point A to point B while traversing large areas of open water. Without the benefit of landmarks, they used dead reckoning and celestial navigation to get them to and from their destination. During the middle of the 20th century, electronic navigation aids became available to help mariners and aviators find their way.
The lecture will begin with a brief discussion of celestial navigation and the early electronic systems that used radio beacons as electronic lighthouses. The Lorenz Beam system and Direction-Finding Loop enabled navigators to follow a straight line bearing toward their destination.
The next step was a class of equipment known as hyperbolic navigation systems. These systems allowed navigators to locate their position in terms of Latitude and Longitude with relatively good accuracy. Although limited in distance it was enough to guide a vessel safely into port.
The last of these systems, called Omega, was the first global positioning system. It was designed to provide worldwide coverage however the emergence of satellite navigation systems soon led to the decommissioning of Omega and the previous systems.
Speaker Bio:
Richard Bova is a former embedded systems engineer who recently worked in the satellite communications system industry. He has also worked as an analog/digital design engineer with hybrid integrated circuits, navigation systems and military ground support equipment. As a former adjunct and full-time professor at DeVry Institute of Technology (DeVry College of NY), he served as the Chair of the Electrical Engineering Technology program and was a TAC/ABET program evaluator.
Mr. Bova holds a BSEE and MSEE from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (Tandon School of Engineering at NYU) and is a Life Member of the IEEE. He is currently a volunteer workshop leader in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Stony Brook University where he leads workshops in drawing and electronics related subjects.
Notes
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