The US Navy oftentimes conducts underwater missions that have poor visibility and are nearly impossible to see. In order for the mission to be successful there needs to be accurate underwater navigation, and now the Shadow NAV does just that with a head-up display, according to Marine Services.
The hands-free Shadow NAV is fitted to a diver’s mask and provides a visual display of the diver’s compass heading and depth in near-zero visibility. With the mask’s head-up display, combat divers can carry a tactical swim board and are no longer restricted by visibility.
“The Combat Diver may have a significant amount of essential equipment to carry while conducting missions. Traditional kit such as the compass and depth gauges not only increases the amount of equipment required, but, more critically, they are of little, or no use in water with very limited visibility, even with auxiliary illumination. This puts the diver at too great a risk of injury or even fatality,” says Danny Gray, products and support director at James Fisher and Sons (JFD). “To address challenges for potentially dangerous underwater combat missions, the expert technical team S3D at the NSWC PCD worked to develop a small, low-cost, low-power enhanced navigation capability to significantly improve safety standards for military divers and give them the best possible chance of successfully completing their missions. In bringing this to market, JFD will be making this capability widely available to divers operating across the globe.”
The display provides information on compass heading, diver depth, time in minutes and seconds, and the remaining battery. Additionally, it uses low-light characters to preserve the user’s night vision.
The Shadow NAV was awarded a 2018 Excellence in Technology Transfer Award by the Federal Laboratory Consortium.
Filed Under: Aerospace + defense
