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Radiolocation Page
by David Gibson, MA PhD MIEE
Keywords: cave radio, cave surveying, electromagnetic theory, radiolocation, sub-surface communication.
Softbound, 70pp, A4. A draft edition is now available from stock - see below.
Books by David Gibson: Sub-Surface Communications |
Cave Radiolocation
Over the past few years I have written many articles on radio-location, on the use of electronics in cave surveying, and even an article on copyright aspects of cave surveys. The article How Accurate is Radio-location summarised the causes of inaccuracy in the technique. In Radiolocation Errors Arising from a Tilted Loop I analysed, for the first time, some of these errors; including a proof of the radio-location 'thirds' rule. My article on 3D Vector Processing of Magnetometer and Inclinometer Data has been used by a USA firm in the design of their own 3D navigation equipment.
As part of my work on sub-surface radio at Leeds University, I developed a novel 'field gradient technique', which could prove an interesting new tool for radio-location. I gave a paper on this subject at a meeting of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin in December 1998, and at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in July 2000.
Most of the articles collected together in this draft 'digest' are from the BCRA's Cave Radio & Electronics Group journal (ISSN 1361 4800), but some have also appeared in Compass Points (ISSN 1361 8962), the newsletter of the BCRA's Cave Surveying Group, Cave & Karst Science (ISSN 1356-191X), the BCRA's formal science journal, and Caves & Caving (ISSN 0142 1832) , the BCRA's Caving magazine. In addition to these articles, papers have appeared in various conference proceedings.
Of course, I am not the only person to write about radiolocation - others have also contributed highly regarded articles to the CREG journal on the practical side of radiolocation (techniques, equipment) - notably Brian Pease, Ian Drummond and Stuart France. However, for the moment, this book is just a reproduction of my theoretical articles - some of which (mostly the earlier ones) may not be quite as useful or informative as the later ones. They do, after all, span a period of fourteen years.
I am acknowledged as one of a small number of experts on sub-surface communications. I currently work as a research project manager in the UK's Mines Rescue Service Ltd, where I am one of a team of scientists and engineers undertaking research work on behalf of the mining industry, with funding from the European Commission, UK Government, HSE and industry.
This book is currently in the form of a 70-page "draft collection of
essays", as listed below. Items shown shaded are omitted from this first draft
edition. This edition is currently only available on paper. However, as time
goes by, I will get around to putting PDF or HTML versions of the text on this
web site: look for the links marked
.
| 1991 | Notes on a Laser Gyrocompass, CREGnews 06, p8, Dec. 1991 |
| 1991 | Accuracy Problems in Ultrasonic and Light-beam Rangefinders, CREGnews 06, p9, Dec. 1991 |
| 1991 | Improving Directivity in Ultrasonic Rangefinders, CREGnews 06, pp9-10 |
| 1991 | A Laser Rangefinder, CREGnews 06, pp10-11, Dec. 1991 |
| 1992 | Phased-array Sonar for Rangefinding, CREGnews 07, pp1-2, March 1992 |
| 1992 | Global Positioning Underground, CREGnews 09, p18-20, Sept. 1992. |
| 1994 | Water Tracing with VLF Radio, CREGJ 16, p9, June 1994. |
| 1994 | Sites for Testing Cave Radios at Depth, CREGJ 18, p12-14, Dec. 1994. |
| 1996 | Electronics in Cave Surveying, CREGJ 23, p25-26, March 1996. |
| 1996 | Review: Electronic Compass Modules, CREGJ 23, p27-28, March 1996. |
| 1996 | Electronics in Surveying, part 2, CREGJ 24, p28, June 1996. |
| 1996 | How Accurate is Radio-location? Cave & Karst Science 23(2). p77-80. Oct. 1996. [An earlier version appeared in Compass Points 10, pp5-9, Dec. 1995] |
| 1996 | 3-D Vector Processing of Magnetometer and Inclinometer Data, Cave & Karst Science 23(2), p71-76, Oct. 1996 |
| 1998 | Radiolocation Errors Arising from a Tilted Loop. Compass Points 21,
p18-20. [reprinted in #21 following typesetting errors in #20].
Read CP21 on-line |
| 1998 | Radiolocation using Field Gradient Techniques, Compass Points 22.
pp10-12. Dec. 1998. Read this file (PDF 39K) |
| 1999 | Cave Radio Notebook - 42: Winding Accuracy of Radiolocation Antennas, CREGJ 38, p14. Dec. 1999. |
| 2000 | A Channel Sounder for Sub-Surface Communications: Part 2 - Computer Simulation of a Small Buried Loop. CREGJ 41, p29-32. Sept. 2000. |
| 2001 | Cave Surveying by Radio-Location - 1. CREGJ, 43, p24-26. Sept. 2001. |
| 2001 | Cave Radio Notebook 45: Is 'Cave Radio' a radio phenomenon?. CREGJ 45. pp27-29. Sept. 2001. |
| 2001 | Cave Radio Notebook 46: The role of skin depth. CREGJ 45. pp27-29. Sept. 2001. |
| 2001 | Cave Radio Notebook 47: Writing a software radio. CREGJ 45. pp27-29. Sept. 2001. |
| 2001 | The Copyright of Cave Surveys. [based on versions which appeared in Compass Points 11 (March 1996) and Caves & Caving 73 (Autumn 1996) ] |
| 2002 | Cave Radio Notebook 49: Trigonometric Radiolocation. CREGJ 48. p7. June 2002. |
| 2002 | Cave Surveying by Radio-Location - 3. CREGJ 48, p11-16. June 2002. |
| 2002 | Design Directory: Radiolocation and Cave Radio, CREGJ 48, p22-23,
June 2002. Read a
similar article online. |
| 2002 | Cave-to-Cave Radiolocation: a Generalised Algorithm, CREGJ 50. p11. Dec. 2002 |
| 2003 | 3D Radiolocation using a Single Station, CREGJ 52, pp14-17. June 2003. |
| 2003 | A Bibliography of Radiolocation, CREG 52, pp22-23, June 2003. [An earlier version appeared in compass Points 30, March 2003) ] |
| 2004 | Radiolocation, In Encyclopedia of Cave & Karst
Science, edited by J. Gunn, New York: Routledge.
See:
Radiolocation for Cave Surveying |
| 2004 | An Electronic Compass and Clinometer Using Optical Sensor, CREGJ 57, pp22-24, Sept. 2004. |
Note: A lists of further reading that include authors other than David Gibson are given in CREGJ 48 (2002) and CREGJ 52 (2003) as listed above. There have been some relevant articles in CREG journals subsequent to issue 52 which are not listed in those references. A full this will appear here "sometime" (today's date: October 2004)
| 1998 | David Gibson's Radio-Location Pages. Available at caves.org.uk/radio/radioloc.html |
| 2002 | Radiolocation and Cave Communications - Selected References on Paper. Available at caves.org.uk/radio/selectedrefs.html |
| 2003 | Antenna Design, Chapter 4 of PhD thesis - published version in press |
| 2003 | Re: [Speleonics] methods of depth determination. Speleonics Mailing List, Message-ID <fQXtcyAE9kr +Ew6N@[127.0.0.1]>, 29 Apr 2003. Available here. This article may form the basis for a future article in the CREG journal. |
This book is available "at cost" for a price of £10. This is the cost to me of getting each copy printed and bound, and mailing it to you (worldwide). I would, of course, greatly appreciate being able to make a small amount of money out of this work - to recompense me for the large amount of time I have put into the project. Therefore please feel free to give me a donation! Cavers should consider adding £5; commercial / industrial / academic users should consider adding £35 (and that is, of course, less than a day's consultancy!).
Click on one of the following links to visit my Payments Page with the information pre-filled in on the form. Various payment methods are possible, but the simplest, for orders from outside the UK, is for you to pay by credit card via Paypal.
Last updated 30th August 2005, David Gibson