BUMP and Underwater Acoustic Television

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Abstract
BUMP (Benthic Untethered Multipurpose Platform) is a freely descending deep water instrumentation package capable of emitting or collecting data while it transits the water column or while in the vicinity of the ocean bottom. Its design emphasizes ruggedness, adaptability to many missions and the ability to operate from a wide variety of small craft. BUMP features 36 lb syntactic foam buoyancy, an aluminum pressure bottle with one cubic foot internal volume, 125 lb payload, 1.4 Kwh of lead acid batteries and a 16,000 foot depth capability. BUMP's subsystems will be reviewed and its operational employment will be illustrated. BUMP was recently used off San Clemente Island to broadcast acoustically transmitted slow-scan television (SSTV) and other signals from a 3,720 foot depth to a near surface receiver. Identical acoustic information was broadcast over two carrier frequencies near 10 and 40 Khz. The SSTV pictures represent a data rate of 7700 baud which paints out a single frame every 8.5 seconds Closed circuit quality pictures were obtained over the 40 Khz channel whenever the broad beamed transmitting and receiving transducers were in each others main lobes. In addition to the SSTV, precision ping and CW data was obtained which can be correlated with the received picture quality. Examples of this data, as well as the pictures, will be Shown.

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