Patent Application
20180112977
The present invention relates to a depth gauge comprising an elongate support which is intended to be in an upright orientation when in use, a multiplicity of emitters mounted on the elongate support and being spaced apart therealong, and a multiplicity of detectors mounted on the elongate support and being spaced apart therealong, the emitters and the detectors being electrically connected to a processor to enable the latter to send signals to the emitters and receive signals from the detectors.
One such gauge is described and illustrated in JPH03242595 (A).
One problem encountered with such a gauge is that, if it is used for measuring the depth of snow, the snow may become caked against the emitters and the detectors in the event of driving wind conditions in which the snow is driven against the gauge to settle on the gauge before it has reached the ground.
The present invention seeks to provide a remedy.
Accordingly, a first aspect of the present invention is directed to a depth gauge comprising an elongate support which is intended to be in an upright orientation when in use, a multiplicity of emitters mounted on the elongate support and being spaced apart therealong, and a multiplicity of detectors mounted on the elongate support and being spaced apart therealong, the emitters and the detectors being electrically connected to a processor to enable the latter to send signals to the emitters and receive signals from the detectors, in which there are at least two sets of such receivers or at least two sets of such detectors mounted on the elongate support, the sets being directed in different respective directions.
With such a construction, when it is used to provide a measure of the depth of snow, and in the event that the depth indicated by one of the sets is different from the depth indicated by the other set or one of the other sets, this is indicative that the set indicating a greater depth has snow caked on it, so that the depth indicated by that set may be ignored. Thus such a construction provides the advantage that it can distinguish between a false depth indication arising from snow which has caked onto the gauge, and a true depth indication from snow which has built up from ground level.
Each emitter and each detector may be directed outwardly from the gauge, so that the strength of a signal received by a detector which signal has been issued by an adjacent emitter will be dependent upon the extent to which that signal has been reflected by material which is adjacent to the emitter and the detector.
The emitters and detectors may comprise light emitters and light detectors. Such a construction is especially useful to measure the depth of snow.
The processor may be constructed to enable it to distinguish between more than two different levels of signal received from each detector. This enables the gauge to distinguish between different types of snow, for example to distinguish between crisp snow, slushy snow, and icy snow.
The processor may be programmed to address each emitter in succession, from the intended lower end of the elongate support upwardly to the intended upper end thereof. With such a construction, the level of the detector at which the measured signal is lower than the signal from the immediately preceding detector may be indicative of the depth of the snow on the ground.
The processor may be programmed to store the level of the signal received from a detector, whilst an adjacent emitter is in the off condition or is otherwise in a condition in which it is not transmitting, then to switch the emitter into a condition in which it is transmitting a signal, at which time it compares the level of the signal received from the detector and stores the difference in the level of that signal relative to the level of the signal when the emitter was in the off condition or was otherwise in a condition in which it was not transmitting. This provides the advantage that the difference signal is independent of the ambient light, so that it does not have an effect on the results provided by the processor, the latter thereby giving the same indication irrespective of whether the gauge is operating during daytime or nighttime, for example.
Alternatively, the processor may be programmed to cause each emitter to transmit a varied signal, for example a pulsed signal, and it may be programmed to measure a correspondingly varied signal from an adjacent detector. This also provides the advantage of obtaining a measurement which is independent of the ambient light, and to give a greater signal to noise performance.
The emitters and the detectors may be in registration with one another. This ensures that a measurement may be obtained from an emitter/detector of one set at a given level which corresponds in level to an emitter/detector of the other set or of any one of the other sets.
A divider may be provided between the emitter and the detector of a given emitter-detector pair. The divider may have a degree of opacity relative to the signal issued by the emitter of the emitter-detector pair.
A divider may be provided between one emitter-detector pair and an adjacent emitter-detector pair. The divider may have a degree of opacity relative to the signal issued by the emitter of the pair or the adjacent pair. This reduces the likelihood of transmission of a signal directly from an emitter to a detector instead of by way of reflection by surrounding material the depth of which is to be measured.
Another problem encountered with such a gauge as is disclosed in JPH03242595(A) is that it can not readily distinguish between different forms of the material the depth of which it is intended to measure.
A second aspect of the present invention is accordingly directed to a depth gauge comprising an elongate support which is intended to be in an upright orientation when in use, a multiplicity of emitters mounted on the elongate support and being spaced apart therealong, and a multiplicity of detectors mounted on the elongate support and being spaced apart therealong, the emitters and the detectors being electrically connected to a processor to enable the latter to send signals to the emitters and receive signals from the detectors, in which each emitter is capable of emitting radiation, and/or each detector is capable of detecting radiation, selectively within a plurality of different ranges of frequencies without emitting/detecting radiation outside the selected range, or emitting/detecting radiation outside the selected range only at a reduced level compared to the radiation emitted/detected within that range, or in which different emitters are capable of emitting radiation, and/or different detectors are capable of detecting radiation, within different respective ranges of frequencies without emitting/detecting radiation outside those ranges, or emitting/detecting radiation outside those ranges only at a reduced level compared to the radiation emitted/detected within those ranges.
The ranges may be narrow, so that the emitters each emit radiation, or the detectors detect radiation, substantially at a given frequency.
The given frequencies may correspond to wavelengths of 0.6 micrometers, 1.1 micrometers, and 1.65 micrometers.
An example of a depth gauge made in accordance with the present invention is illustrated in greater detail in the accompanying drawings, in which:—
The lower end of the post one is provided with a ground spike 5, with a stability disc or flange 6 sandwiched between the spike 5 and the post 1.
The upper end of the post 1 is provided with a processor with a housing 4. The processor is electrically connected via multiplex circuitry (not shown) to all the emitters 2 and to all of the detectors 3.
The upper half of the post 1 is provided with lugs 7 from which extend guy wires 8, down to ends further from the post 1 which ends are firmly secured to the ground. This provides the post 1 with further stability.
As can be seen more readily from
It will be appreciated that the eight emitter-detector pairs of each of the platforms 3a are directed in the same eight respective directions as the emitter-detector pairs of all the other platforms 3a. As a result, there are eight sets of emitter-detector pairs, with respective bisectors constituted by dividers 9 or 10 between the emitters and detectors of each set, such that the eight bisectors are also uniformly spaced apart around the axis of the post 1, with an angle of 45° between adjacent dividers.
When in use, with the spike 5 inserted into the ground so that the flange 6 is pressed against the surface of the ground and the guy wires 8 are also secured to the ground as indicated in
The processor with housing 4 is duly programmed so that it reads the signal issuing from the detector 3 of each of the lowermost eight emitter-detector pairs. It does this whilst the emitters of each of those pairs is switched off, or is otherwise in a non-transmitting condition. It then switches on the emitters 2 of each emitter-detector pair of the lowermost platform 3a, in turn so that there is no interference in the measurements as between one emitter-detector pair and another. It then stores the difference between the reading it obtains from the detector 3 of each emitter-detector pair when the emitter 2 is in a transmitting condition to the reading it obtains from that detector 3 when the emitter 2 of the pair is not transmitting.
This is then repeated for the emitter-detector pairs of each platform 3a in succession upwardly from the bottom of the post 1 towards the top thereof.
The program then analyses these results to indicate at what level of the post 1 the said difference suddenly drops, by virtue of the fact that there is no material to reflect the light from the emitter 2 into the detector 3 of a given emitter-detector pair. It also provides an indication of any difference between the results obtained from the emitter-detector pairs on a given level of platform 3a, indicative for example of whether there is any caking of snow on the post 1, also from the values of the difference signals, as well as an indication of the nature of the material, for example whether it is crisp snow, slushy snow, icy snow, or somewhere between these conditions, or whether it is a fine frost, a coarse frost or block ice with bubbles, for example.
This procedure is completed with the emitters 2 and/or the detectors 3 switched to operate exclusively at a frequency corresponding to a wavelength of substantially 0.6 micrometers. It is then repeated with the emitters 2 and/or the detectors 3 switched to operate exclusively at a wavelength of substantially 1.1 micrometers. The procedure is then repeated with the emitters 2 and/or the detectors switched to operate exclusively at a wavelength of substantially 1.65 micrometers.
In regard to
In regard to
These graphs show how the different measurements at different frequencies or wavelengths can be used to indicate the nature of the material the depth of which is being measured with the gauge illustrated in
All these indications are transmitted from the microprocessor with housing 4 remotely to a data capture centre, via wire or wireless communication, where the various values are recorded and observed so that any remedial activity that needs to take place can be appropriately directed, and so that generally a statistical record can be made.
Many such gauges may form part of a network to cover a wide area. The results from such a network may be published over the internet.
Numerous variations and modifications to the illustrated gauge may readily occur to the reader without taking the resulting construction outside the scope of the present invention. For example, there may be only two sets of emitters and two sets of detectors spaced apart along the post 1, or there may be three such sets of each, or more than four, for example eight. Stating this more generally, there may be N sets of emitters 2 and N sets of detectors 3, to have 2N sets of emitter-detector pairs directed in 2N directions respectively, where N>1, although it would still be useful to have one set of emitters 2 and two sets of detectors 3, providing two sets of emitter-detector pairs, or one set of detectors 3 and two sets of emitters 2, also providing two sets of emitter-detector pairs. Although the emitters and detectors in the illustrated gauge are light emitters and light detectors, they may be constructed to emit and detect a different radiation or a different physical effect. Although the gauge has been described as a device for measuring the depth of snow, the gauge may be adapted to measure the depth of other materials or fluids, especially if they are light reflective. The post 1 may be anything from 50 cm in length to 15 m in length, or indeed outside this range, depending upon the depths of snow to be measured in different parts of the world. The spike 5 may be about 30 cm in length. The processor with housing 4 may be programmed to detect a malfunctioning of any of the emitters and detectors.
The microprocessor with housing 4 may be programmed so that signals transmitted by each emitter 2 may be varied, for example pulsed, and so that the signals from the corresponding detector 3 that are processed by the microprocessor are those which are correspondingly varied. This avoids the need for measurements to be taken when the emitter is in the off condition, to avoid the effects of ambient light, and to provide a greater signal to noise performance.
