JPS6290586A - Fish finder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable even a person with little experience to easily estimate the magnitude of a school of fish by enabling the substantial magnitude of a school of fish echo to be judged by the comparison between the periods at which a distance marker and a time division marker are discolored. CONSTITUTION:The outputs of respective digits from an auxiliary scanning signal generator 4 are led to a decoder 7, wherein a time division marker and a distance marker both in the direction of the depth of water are generated, and led to AND gates 131 and 132. On the other hand, a fish shoal echo is led from a transducer 211 to a receiver 22 and in putted to a fish school image memory 18 via a buffer memory 15. The time dividing marker and the distance marker to the gates 131 and 132 are given by a timer and an electromagnetic log, respectively, and supplied to a memory 15 corresponding to the upper region of the image screen of a color cathode ray tube display 28 wherein color codes with two or three colors alternately appear every constant time or every constant distance. Thus, by comparing the periods at which both the markers are discolored, the speed of the transducer relative to a water can be determined and the substantial magnitude of the school of fish echo can be easily judged.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention is a fish finder that displays information on fish echoes over time in a television format. By displaying the line along with the line, even inexperienced people can easily estimate the amount of fish, instead of the intuitive estimation of the amount of fish that was determined empirically by watching the video with conventional fish finders. , which attempts to provide a quantitative estimation method.

Figures 1 (A), (B), (C), and (D) are specific examples of fish school amount and fish school density display according to the present invention on any part of the video screen of a television-type fish finder. (A) is a simple example in which the boundary line surrounding the target water area is displayed as four parallel lines drawn to fill the entire screen, and (B) is a simple example in which only the target water area is surrounded by a boundary line, and the depth of the upper and lower ends of the boundary line is displayed. Specific examples listed together with the fish mass coefficient and the fish density coefficient, (
C) shows a specific example when applied to a PPI sonar that performs rask scanning in an arc shape, and (D) shows a specific example where an arbitrary boundary line is drawn using a light pen or the like.

For any of them, an alarm function can be added that will issue a be warning with the numerical display blinking when the fish population coefficient of the target water area exceeds a certain threshold value.

In the above specific example, there is a method in which the water area surrounded by the boundary line is moved along with the movement of the fish school image screen, and a method in which it is fixed within the screen regardless of the movement of the fish school image screen. If you use the method of moving the target water area at the same time as moving the fish school video screen,
Once set, the fish density coefficient value of the water area corresponding to the boundary line remains the same until the target water area moves and disappears from the screen, so it is inappropriate to use it as a monitor of the amount of fish. In this specific example, the border line was fixed to the TV screen.

Figure 2 shows a specific example of a circuit for obtaining the fish mass indication shown in Figure 1 (B), and Figure 3 shows a flowchart of the control operation for operating this device using the circuit in Figure 2. .

The circuit for obtaining the display shown in Fig. 1 (A) is shown in Fig. 1 (B).
By simplifying part of the corresponding circuit, the first
Figure (C) can be easily obtained by replacing the main scanning control and sub-scanning control in Figure 1 (B) from surface scanning and line scanning to circular scanning and radial direction scanning. A specific example of the circuit will be omitted.

In order to obtain the display shown in Fig. 1 (D), light bend control etc. are required, which increases the circuit configuration, but there is little need to arbitrarily set the target water area to that extent, so the circuit example in this case is also omitted. do.

The symbols ■, ■, ■, ■, ■, and 0 in FIG. 1(B) are symbols in FIG. 2 that indicate the parts where signals corresponding to those symbols are generated.

In FIG. 2, the central processing unit 1 includes a computer that performs necessary calculations and controls in response to interrupt signals that read the necessary data, and programs and constant data to perform these calculations and controls in the correct order. The stored ROM, the RAM that stores numerical values of intermediate results necessary for calculation and control, the data bus (DB) for outputting numerical data, and the address that specifies the target for transmitting data. Data is transferred to and from external devices other than the central processing unit 1 via the input and output ports 2 on the bus (AB).

The input/output boat 2 consists of a group of gates that gate signals such as reading/writing from the central processing unit 1 by the output of a group of decoders connected to the address bus, as shown in Figure 2. Various control signals such as these are generated along with programs executed by the central processing unit 1.

When the timing pulse generator 3 sets necessary cycle data through the data bus in response to a write signal from the output boat 2, it generates a pulse with a specified cycle in a specified period according to the data. This is a group of preset counters, and includes fish school echo sample pulses for receiving in response to the start of transmission pulses according to the fish school cycle, reception start interrupt pulses for notifying the central processing unit 1 of the start of the fish school cycle, etc. Made with.

The sub-scanning line signal generator 4 is a part that generates a synchronizing signal that controls the line-scanning part of the raster scan of the television. The carry output is sent to the main scanning signal generator 5 at the next stage to generate a synchronizing signal for controlling the area scanning portion of the raster scanning of the television. The main scanning signal generator 5 also consists of a counter (main scanning address counter) with a specific base number.

The carry of the sub-scanning signal generator 4 is also guided to the fish school image feeding direction address counter 6 which has the same digit as the main scanning signal generator 5, and the main scanning signal generator 5 and the fish school image υ direction address counter 6 are counted at the same time. In addition to the carrying power from the sub-scanning signal generator 4, the feed direction address counter 6 for fish school images also receives the screen feed signal from the output port 2 as a counting input. The content of the static screen feed direction address (main scanning signal generator) 5 and the moving screen feed direction address (
The contents of 6 (multi-directional address counter for fish school images) become different values.

Each digit output of the sub-scanning signal generator 4 is guided to a decoder 7,
The TV line synchronization signal ()IE) as an output from it
and generates control signals for specifying the position of the minute and hour markers, distance markers, and fish school images in the water depth direction on the screen.
, 132, . You will be directed to 133.

Each digit output of the main scanning signal generator 5 is led to a decoder 8,
As outputs therefrom, a television screen synchronization signal (VE) and a video start address reading signal are generated, and each is guided to a color cathode ray tube display unit 28 and a video start address register 19.

The high-order digit outputs of the sub-scanning signal generator 4 and the main-scanning signal generator 5 also pass through the C-RAM address switch 9 and are connected to the address input of character memory (C-RAM) 11 from output port 2. Except when writing character data from the data bus using the C-RAM write signal of 4., the character data previously written to the C-RAM 11 is transferred to the sub-scanning signal generator 4. In response to changes in the address input from the main scanning signal generator 5, the characters are sequentially called and guided to the character generator 2, and the sub-scanning signal generator 4 and the lower order of the main scanning signal generator 5 are guided there. With the help of digit output, a character display signal synchronized with the raster running of the television is sent to the character inserter 25.

The character data of C-RAMII includes a control bit that determines whether or not to display characters on the display.
The best thing to do is to make sure that the characters do not appear in places other than where they are needed.

Each digit output of the sub-scanning signal generator 4 and the multi-directional address counter 6 for fish school images is connected to the address input of the fish school image memory (V-RAM) 18 via a V-RAM address switch 10, and input and output ports. 2. Except when writing video data from the buffer memory 15 using the V-RAM write signal from the V-RAM 18, the video data previously written to the RAM 18 is transferred to the sub-scanning signal generator 4. Fish school images are sequentially called in response to changes in the address input from the multi-directional address counter 6, and guided to the character inserter 25 and level decoder 29, where the character inserter 25 superimposes the fish school image and character display signal. posed.

The transmission pulse sent out from the timing pulse generator 3 every fish finding cycle is guided to the transmitter 24, and a high frequency transmission pulse corresponding to the pulse width is sent from the transducer 211 into the sea via the transmission/reception switch 212. The resulting fish school echo is transmitted from the transducer 211 to the transmitter/receiver switch 212.
The signal is then guided to the receiver 22 , where the amplified and detected output is guided to the buffer memory 15 via the A/D converter 23 .

The read/write address of the buffer memory 15 is given by the buffer memory address counter 16, which is reset to zero by the reception start interrupt signal from the timing pulse generator 3, and then is reset to zero by the reception start interrupt signal from the timing pulse generator 3. Pulse generator 3
The duck school echo sample pulse passes through the OR gate 17 and becomes a count to the buffer memory address counter 16 and a write signal to the buffer memory 15, backing up the fish school echo signal from the A/D converter 23 at regular intervals. The memory address counter 16 is sequentially written, and the completion of writing to the buffer memory 15 is detected by the end carry of the buffer memory address counter 16, and a reception completion interrupt signal is sent from the buffer memory address counter 16 to central processing. The signal is sent to device 1 and timing pulse generator 3. The timing pulse generator 3 thereby stops the fish school echo sample pulse for the corresponding buffer memory.

Transfer from buffer memory 15 to V-RAM 18 is done manually.

By the V-RAM write signal from output port 2,
The V-RAM address switch 10 is switched to pass a signal from the address bus specifying the V-RAM write address from the central processing unit 1, and at the same time, counting is performed via the OR gate 17 to the buffer memory address counter 16. The reading is performed sequentially by advancing the reading seat address of the buffer memory 15 one by one. At this time, the output of the buffer memory 15 is input to the V-RAM 18 via the AND gate 133 and the ORG 14, and the minute marker and the distance marker are connected to the AND gate 131.

132, enters the V-RAM 18 via the OR gate 14.

The line scan on the TV screen is displayed at the left edge of the TV screen placed vertically (
Each of the video feed direction addresses guided from the fish school video feed direction address counter 6 is sent to the video start address register 19 by the video start address read signal output from the decoder 8 when the video reaches the final position of the video. If the digit output is latched and its contents are read, the video start address is read from the output board 2 and the dry state game is activated.
0 and the data bus to the central processing unit 1, and the new fish school echo information from the buffer memory 15 is read to the central processing unit 1 via the data bus V-
This becomes the write address when writing to the RAM 18.

Every time one day's worth of fish echo information from the buffer memory 15 is written to the V-RAM 18, a signal from the output boat 2 is sent as a counting pulse to the fish school image transmission direction address counter 6, and the fish school image is The relative relationship of the feed direction address counter 6 to the main scanning signal generator 5 changes by one, and the fish school image moves by one line in the feed direction with respect to the still screen. This will bring the latest fish school image you wrote to the left end of the screen (the final position of the video) to the right end of the screen (the starting position).

TV synchronization signals HE and VE from said decoders 7 and 8
are negative pulses corresponding to the blanking periods of line scanning and plane scanning, respectively, so their rising points correspond to the start positions of line scanning (depth direction scanning) and plane scanning (travel direction scanning), respectively. .

Therefore, the rise of the HE triggers the monostable multi 37, and the fall of the output of the monostable multi 37 triggers the monostable multi 38.
The output of the monostable multi 38 obtained by triggering is that if the pulse widths of the monostable multis 37 and 38 are Ta and T4, it corresponds to the depth from Ta to Ts + T4 with the top of the screen as the standard. Monostable multi 3 with a signal and a strange start-up.
The output of the monostable multi 34 obtained by triggering the monostable multi 34 at the falling edge of the output of the monostable multi 33 is the pulse width of the monostable multi 33 and 34.
2, from Tt to Tt + using the right edge of the screen as a reference
The signal corresponds to the time up to Tz.

The output widths of the above monostable multis 33, 34: 37, 38 are respectively the volumes A VRt, VRz:
By making it possible to change VB2 and VB2, the values of T1 and Tl+T2 corresponding to the range in the feeding direction and Ta and T3+T4 corresponding to the range in the depth direction can be arbitrarily changed.

The outputs of the monostable multis 33 and 34 are routed to falling edge detectors 35 and 36, respectively, and with the help of HE as a clock pulse, the falling points of the monostable multis 33 and 34, i.e., T
Line scanning body signals are obtained from the falling edge detectors 35 and 36 at the time positions of a and Tt + T2, and the monostable multi 3
The outputs of 7 and 38 are routed to falling edge detectors 39 and 40, respectively, to detect the rising edge points of monostable multis 37 and 38, namely T and Ts, with the help of V-CK as a clock pulse.
A signal for one image point is obtained from the falling edge detectors 39 and 40 at a depth position of +Ta.

The fall detector 35 and the monostable multi 38 are connected to the AND gate 4.
Since the output (■) obtained by leading to 1 means the intersection of Tx and Ta + T4, it becomes a signal corresponding to the point (■) at the lower right corner of the boundary line illustrated in FIG. 1(B). Falling edge detectors 35 and 3
The output ■ obtained by leading 9 to the AND gate 421 means the intersection group of Tl and T3 to (Ts + T4), so it becomes a signal corresponding to the right side ■ of the boundary line illustrated in FIG. 1(B). . The output ■ obtained by leading the falling edge detector 36 and the monostable multi 38 to the AND gate 422 is T2 and T3~(T3
+T4), the signal corresponds to the left side (■) of the boundary line illustrated in FIG. 1(B).

Monostable multi 34 and falling edge detector 40 are connected to AND gate 4
The output ■ obtained by leading to 31 is T3 ~ (T3 + T4) and Tt
Since it means the group of intersections of +T2, it becomes a signal corresponding to the lower side (■) of the boundary line shown in FIG. 1(B). The output ■ obtained by guiding the monostable multi 34 and falling edge detector 39 to the AND gate 432 means a group of intersections of T3 to (T3+T4) and 1 ri, so the boundary line illustrated in Fig. 1 (B) The upper side of ■
The signal corresponds to The output ■ obtained by guiding the falling edge detectors 36 and 39 to the AND gate 44 is Tl + T2 and T.
3, the signal corresponds to the point ■ at the upper left corner of the boundary line illustrated in FIG. 1(B).

Therefore, the above AND gates 421, 422: 43
1.

The output obtained by guiding 432 to the OR gate 45 is shown in Figure 1 (B
), the signal corresponds to the four sides of the boundary line, so
If this is guided to the boundary line inserter 26, the video signal of (fish school image cross display) is further transferred from the character inserter 25 to the boundary line inserter 26. A video signal with superposed information is obtained as the output of the border inserter 26.

The output of the boundary line inserter 26 is converted into a color signal corresponding to a signal level code by a color signal generator 27, and becomes a video signal to be sent to a color cathode ray tube display 28.

When inserting characters and boundaries into a fish school image using the character inserter 25 and boundary line inserter 26, the colors of the characters and boundaries are determined by the colors used when writing character data from the central processing unit 1 to the C-RAM II. It is determined by the color code specification, but the specific color for the border line is determined by hardware. In cases where it is possible to select a plurality of boundary water areas, it is advantageous to allow the colors of the boundary lines to be specified arbitrarily using software means for distinguishing them.

The falling edge detector 40 is set by the output of the AND gate 432 that is output when the raster scan passes the upper side of the boundary line, and is output when the raster scan reaches the depth corresponding to the lower side of the boundary line.
The clip-flop 47 is reset with the output obtained by inverting the output of VE and the output of VE into a positive pulse by the inverter 461 and guiding it to the OR gate 46. It becomes 1〉. VB
The flaw signal is reset so that even if the 7 lip-flop 47 becomes <1> due to malfunction, it will be returned to normal within one screen scanning period.

By guiding the output of the flip-flop 47 and the video clock V-CK to the AND gate 48, a number of pulses proportional to the area of the part surrounded by the boundary line is output to the AND gate 48.
obtained from.

(2) The video signal output of the RAM 18 is also led to a level decoder 29 for level classification, and the output corresponding to each video level is led to an AND gate group 30. ANDGATE GROUP 3
0, the output from the AND gate 48 is guided as a gate pulse for sampling each level signal from the level decoder 29, and from the level decoder 2 in the AND gate group 30. input is <1>
However, only K generated a pulse in response to the gate pulse from the AND gate 48. level decoder 290
The level decoder may be omitted and the number of occurrences may be counted for each digit output of the V-RAM 18. With the output pulses from each gate of the AND gate group 30, the counter of the fish school counter group 311 corresponding to each gate output is counted one by one.

Each counter in the fish school counter group 311 is obtained by transferring the VD multiplied signal that appears at the end of the area scanning period of the video screen to the fish school counter register 312 for each point, and then guiding the VE to the short delay circuit 313. Reset to zero by signal.

The output of each register of the fish school counter register 312 is read by the fish school counter reading pulse from the output boat 2 to the central processing unit 1 via the tristate gate 32 and the data bus, and a constant is set according to the level corresponding to each register. By performing software processing such as multiplying by (called the echo aggregate value) is calculated. When a seabed detection signal is obtained from the fish detector, the fish echoes at the bottom point can be totaled by closing the AND gate group 30 after detecting the seabed until the start of the next reception. In order to obtain approximately the same fish mass coefficient for the same fish school k, no matter how the screen range width or screen feed speed is set, the screen settings for the above fish school echo summary values are adjusted. It is necessary to make corrections according to the conditions.

The value obtained by dividing the range width of the video screen by the depth of the screen means the actual depth width (per unit length in the depth direction of the screen), and the value obtained by dividing the transducer's water speed by the screen feed speed is It means the actual distance width of the unit length in the screen feed direction.

Therefore, the value obtained by multiplying the two corresponds to the actual area of the depth per unit area of the screen and the distance in the feeding direction.

On the other hand, since the image density of the screen is a constant value determined by the screen width and the image clock V-CK, a correction proportional to the above value is made to the fish echo aggregate value, and the screen unit surface fin is
The fish mass coefficient is calculated by converting it to the value when the actual areas of Displayed along with water depth. In order to bring the fish mass coefficient closer to the actual value, in addition to the above corrections, corrections should be made according to usage conditions such as the directivity angle of the transducer and the attenuation coefficient according to the gain 2 frequency of the transducer and its amplification system. There is a need.

The screen setting conditions and usage conditions necessary to perform the above corrections are based on the operation panel data connected to the dry state game (511 and 512) and various parameters.
The data is read by the panel data read signal and parameter read signal from the output board 2 to the central processing unit l via the data bus.

The position of the boundary line, which is the target water area, within the screen is determined by the sub-scanning signal generator 4. The contents of the main scanning signal generator 5 are transferred to target water area edge address registers 492 and 491.
The target water area edge address read υ signal from the output boat 2 is read out to the central processing unit 1 via the tristate gates 5o2 and 501 and the data bus.

The area of the target water area is calculated from the position data of ■ and ■ read in this way, and the obtained value is obtained by subtracting the above fish mass coefficient, and the result is set near the above fish mass coefficient as the fish echo density coefficient. They can also be displayed side by side.

When the software determines that the fish mass coefficient in the target water area has exceeded a certain threshold, an alarm 52 is triggered by a person who makes the fish mass display blink by computer means, or by a control signal from the output boat 2. Set and sound the buzzer. Generation of the reset signal 530 for the alarm 52 is performed manually. Divide the above threshold into several levels and alarm different mazes corresponding to each level 5
You can also smooth it out with 2.

The minute and distance markers to the AND gates 131 and 132 are given by a timer and an electromagnetic log, respectively, and two or three color codes are alternately displayed at the top of the screen at fixed time or fixed distance intervals in the upper area of the video screen. ■・RA corresponding to
Supply to M.

The reason why both the minute marker and the distance marker are drawn at the top of the image is to provide a means of determining the speed of the transducer relative to the water by comparing the frequency with which the two color changes.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a control operation procedure for operating the present apparatus using the circuit shown in FIG.

The control operation consists of a monitor part that waits for an interrupt signal, monitors whether or not there has been a change in the operation panel or parameters necessary for operation control, and if there is a change, makes changes according to the corresponding data (flow on the left) When there was a reception start interrupt, the parameters for controlling the single transmitter and receiver were sent to the timing pulse generator 3, etc., and the contents of the fish school counter group 311 were read and corrected to display the amount of fish. υ, if the value exceeds the threshold, the alarm 52 is set (middle flow), and when there is a reception completion interrupt, the contents of the corresponding buffer memory are set to V-
It consists of a part to be transferred to RAM (the flow on the right). Mask on means interrupts are prohibited, and mask off means interrupts are permitted.

Here, we have described the case where there is one area surrounded by the boundary line that defines the target water area and one buffer register (corresponding to a non-divided screen), but even if there are multiple areas, the corresponding area This can be achieved by providing multiple .

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Figures 1 (A), (B), (C), and (D) are specific examples of displaying the amount of fish according to the present invention. Figure 1 (C) is a simple example where only the target water area is surrounded by a boundary line, and the depth of the upper and lower edges are also shown along with the fish mass coefficient and the fish density coefficient. A specific example is shown in which the method is applied to a PPI sonar that performs Uster scanning in an arc shape, and (D) shows a specific example in which an arbitrary boundary line is drawn using a light pen or the like. Figure 2 is a specific example of the circuit for obtaining the fish school amount display shown in Figure 1 (B), and Figure 3 is the
3 is a flowchart showing a control operation procedure for operating the present device using the circuit shown in the figure. 101... Minute and hour marker, 102... Water distance marker, 103... Upper limit marker (variable), 104... Lower limit marker (variable), 105... Start point marker (variable),
106... End point marker (variable), 107... Upper limit depth display, 108... Lower limit depth display, 109... Fish school amount coefficient display, 110... Fish school density coefficient display, 111
...Fish school image, Engineering 12...Oscillation iL 113...
Seafloor image, 114... Image transmission direction, 1... Central processing unit, 2... Person, output port, 3... Timing pulse generator, 4... Sub-scanning signal generator (sub-scanning address counter), 5... Main scanning signal generator (main scanning address counter), 6... Multidirectional address counter for fish school video, 7... Decoder, 8... Decoder, 9...・C・RAM address switch, lO...V
- RAM address cutter, 11... C-RAM (character memory), 12... Character generator, 131... AND gate, 132... AND gate, 133... AND gate, 14... ...OR gate, 15...Buffer memory, 16...Buffer memory address counter, 17...OR gate, 18...V-RAM
(Fish school image memory), 19... Image start address register, 20... Tri-state gate, 21
1... Transducer; 212... Transmission/reception switch;
22... Receiver, 23... A/Di converter, 24...
- Transmitter, 25...Character inserter, 26...Border line inserter, 27...Color signal generator, 28...Color cathode ray tube display, 29...Level decoder, 30...
Antgame) W, 311...Fish counter group; 312
... Fish school counter register; 313 ... Short delay circuit, 32 ... Tri-state gate, 33.34.
... Monostable multi, 35, 36... Falling edge detector,
37.38... Monostable multi, 39, 40... Fall/fall detector, 41, 421, 422, 431°4
32, 44...and gate, 45, 46...
ORGATE, 47...Flip-flop, 48...
AND gate, 491, 492... Target water area edge address register, 501, 502... Tri-state gate, 511, 512... Tri-state gate, 52... Alarm, 53... Alarm reset signal , DB...data bus, AB...address bus, v-CK...video clock.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] A fish finder that displays information on fish echoes over time on a screen of a raster scanning display using main scanning and sub-scanning in a television format, comprising: a. displaying the raster scanning display on a color cathode ray tube; b. A distance marker created based on a signal given from the water speed of the transducer for obtaining the fish echo in an area other than the area where information on the fish echo is displayed on the screen; and a minute marker made based on a signal given from a timer; and a color code display means for displaying two or three color codes alternately, so that the water velocity of the transducer can be determined by comparing the frequency at which the colors of the distance marker and the minute marker change. The device is characterized in that it is possible to determine the substantial size of the fish school echo by knowing the size of the fish echo.