Chapter V: R-evolution of sensors

Gyroscopes and accelerometers would become central to many of the improvements in the accuracy and effectiveness of navigation instruments over the next two decades.

Was Graeme Winn in Sailmath who first applied his potential to sailing after his participation in the Blue Arrow challenge for the Copa America in 1988 .

This experience formed the basis of a new system for the 1995 Copa America he WTP.

The novel feature of this system was the elimination of wind vectors created by the pitch and roll of the ship by using sensors to measure them; the resulting wind was much more stable and required less damping. A few years later another yaw rate gyro was added to the WTP and thus provided the functionality of gyro-stabilized compass information.

At the same time, continuous advances were being made in the sensor technology , particularly in measuring two of the four fundamental data points essential for any racing boat: the speed of the boat and the course (the other two are the speed and angle of the wind ).

Measuring the heading and spatial motion of the vessel has continued to evolve with advances in accelerometers, rotation sensors, inertial navigation systems, and of course, the GPS .

These new sensors have made it possible to eliminate many of the dynamic errors of instrument systems, the spikes observed in wind direction and speed during tacking and gybing.

This allowed the calculation of new data functions that were fully integrated into the system.

Fundamental issues remain to be addressed, wind share correction or upwash correction remain largely difficult to measure, and there is still no real-time vision navigation system at a price accessible to anyone other than a well-funded professional team.