Any news?

AD_ward9

It is restricted to some clients just now, but we do have a lot of stuff on the commercial unit which apart from an umbilical and comms, has much the same monitoring. I will load it onto our web site this week, and post a link.

On my 4 weeks rest ... if only! After DEMA was presentations and exhibition at the Dive Technology Seminar (Bergen) then the UK Safety Conference, and the Accident List material which I need to finish this week too. However, the presentation I will upload should answer a lot of questions.

The units (dual and twin scrubber rebreathers) are fully injection moulded now: i.e. all plastic parts are moulded. A production run of 15 sets of the electronics went well: all working first time it was powered up (everything, not just the rebreather controller). There are some loose ends to tidy up, then we can focus on getting the safety case for the sports units sorted out though it will not be a quick process.

Cheers

Alex

Soren Thomsen

Hi there,

1. Any idea of when a sports model would be available? 1 year or 3 years or?
2. Will the sports model be a recreational unit like Poseidon Discovery or will be available as a trimix model with gasblocks ect.
3. Stupid question really: CO2 monitor is standard on sportsmodel?

Cheers

Soren

__________________
- Giraffes were created when Chuck Norris uppercutted a horse -

AD_ward9

We are releasing the monitoring package separately to our clients. The fast ones will be at DEMA 08 with it, slow ones a year later.

The safety case is of general concern in 5 areas where there is unstructured diving. For this reason we have released the production packages for the clients with structured applications, such as commercial diving, but not for sports use. It will take 18months to 2 years to resolve these issues. The issues are common to all rebreathers, but until they are solved the unit would not achieve SIL 4 for a Sports diver because they will skip cleaning, plumb in hypoxic gases into the ADV, not bother checking the mushrooms etc.

Both.
Yes. See (1) above.

Alex

caveseeker7

More of an rhetorical "available" then, got it.

__________________
Cheers
Stefan



"Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority,
and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media,
which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.!"

AD_ward9

New material posted to Deep Life Ltd: Specialists in life critical system design, including a presentation on the commercial diving unit (under Products - more to come in that section shortly), some of the HAZOPs, reorganisation to find things easier and to support the large volume of documents in the pipeline.

"How rebreathers kill people" also updated (under accidents). This is not related to the accident review: a more detailed and scholarly document will appear in due course.

Alex

caveseeker7

Cool, thanks for the heads-up.

__________________
Cheers
Stefan



"Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority,
and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media,
which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.!"

caveseeker7

Even if it's just a powerpoint ...
You're not using MSware in the OS of your CCR I hope.

__________________
Cheers
Stefan



"Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority,
and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media,
which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.!"

AD_ward9

I saw proposals for a rebreather controlled from a PC and thought at first it was an April fool joke, but then saw the dates were not right for that ...

The Powerpoint contains photos of the production unit: with the plastic items injection moulded etc. Incidentally, I have come full circle and use Unix (in this case, MacOS), so no MSware in the Powerpoint (I assume you mean Microsoft software: MSWare is a company on its own). We have a Powerpoint showing the unit in lots more shots underwater: just waiting for Feb/March to get some real ice diving pics in there: the unit is designed to operate in water temperatures of -4C, and we know just where to go for that. I have posted some of the underwater trial pics already onto Rebreather World.

Anyhow, to answer your point: there is no software controlling the rebreather, nor the comms systems or topside terminator. Software verification is extremely time consuming, so where we can we eliminate it. The entire rebreather, comms and remote control of lighting etc, operates with dual redundancy without any microcontroller in the path. We use instead hard logic, most of which is specified in Verilog. The Verilog HDL is used across the industry for designing extremely large silicon chips (ASICs), where hundreds of millions of gates have to work first time: it costs over $1mn and 9 months to fabricate and test a new ASIC, so the tools exist to enable the Verilog to be fully verified (formally). Any company that does not get its Verilog verification right in the ASIC world, where we live, goes out of business very quickly. It is akin to a ten million line software program running perfectly the first time: that is what formal verification delivers in hardware time after time. If it was not for design verification tools, hardly any silicon chip would ever work!

There are three points where software comes into the picture:

1. The web server that allows supervisors to manage the dive in comfort, with the fancy GUI, rather than plugging into the Topside terminator: that web server runs on a high reliability Linux machine (RAID 1 0, redundant PSUs etc). This requirement was assessed at no SIL, as the supervisor can always plug into the Topside terminator.
   
2. The supervisor can use any browser he wishes to access the web server: it even works from a mobile phone! If the browser crashes, he just opens another one. If all else fails, he just plugs his headset and video monitor into the Topside terminator.
   
3. We do use a microcontroller for the monitors that check the hardware. These have no third party software at all, they run a Time Triggered Architecture, and are formally verified, running a formally verified program, open compiler, Monte Carlo verification against formal models of compiled code.

Alex

2stoned

Awesome Alex.
Space age... Looks like what it is, the next step in diving.
If I was fired up before, I am new engulfed in flames of passion.
I was getting a little moody from the lack of info.
Now I am even more eager to see the other models as they pop up.
Wonderful to see the rebreather so close to fruitition.
You did not quench my thirst, you wetted my appetite
Keep up the good work, and please report to us when you can on the progress of the different versions that will be available.

__________________
Sten.

The only man that always had all his work done by Friday, was Robinson Crusoe!

www.rebreatherworld.com - Is going down in silence - Staying longer in stealth and style - Diving first class, all the way!

Soren Thomsen

Hi Alex,

Are there some of the popular CCR producers among your clients? a.k.a could it be possible to see a sports unit with CO2 monitoring in 2008? Or could the monitoring package be buildt in a new head for existing rebreathers?

Cheers
Soren

__________________
- Giraffes were created when Chuck Norris uppercutted a horse -