Vigil freefall time calculation

[sundevil777 94]

From reading some of the Vigil patent, it seems to confirm what I read in an earlier post, about it becoming "more accurate" with successive jumps.

Something about how the Vigil calculates freefall time remaining based, at least partly, on previous jumps, as opposed to just monitoring the current altitude and speed, I suppose.

I wonder if this is a good idea actually (is it a good idea to base the current jump on previous jumps?), and how it compares to the method used by the Cypres.

The patent is not easy to read and understand.

Any insiders with more insight?

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[Casch 0]

I feel the same way. If all I ever did was Freefly, then decided to some hybrid jump, where I'm doing a little freefly, a little rw or whatever, would the aad flip out and fire???

[dterrick 0]

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I feel the same way. If all I ever did was Freefly, then decided to some hybrid jump, where I'm doing a little freefly, a little rw or whatever, would the aad flip out and fire???

Pages and pages of gobbldeygook the patent document was. Most of it seemed to be baseline maps as to what it would use by default until you entered freefall.

Think of your basic Protrack - it can calculate all your speeds and it's still based on barometric pressure - methinks the vigil is a very very sophisticated Protrack that can estimate - through sheer computing power - when you're due to arrive at SAVE ME time ... and then save you. The regenerative sampling principle is much like modern fuel injection on cars - it samples pressure/temperature/speed many many times a second and adjusts your fuel delivery so that it 'always' runs perfectly.

Think of the stae of the computer industry when the Cypres was designed - never mind introduced. I'm not in the market for an AAD right now ($'s), but by the time I am, the Vigil will have been out for a while and will be more than astested as the Cypres was when IT gained acceptance. It seems smart enough to have earned a patent

-Dave

Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend (Lennon/McCartney)

[ypelchat 0]

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I feel the same way. If all I ever did was Freefly, then decided to some hybrid jump, where I'm doing a little freefly, a little rw or whatever, would the aad flip out and fire???

Pages and pages of gobbldeygook the patent document was. Most of it seemed to be baseline maps as to what it would use by default until you entered freefall.

Think of your basic Protrack - it can calculate all your speeds and it's still based on barometric pressure - methinks the vigil is a very very sophisticated Protrack that can estimate - through sheer computing power - when you're due to arrive at SAVE ME time ... and then save you. The regenerative sampling principle is much like modern fuel injection on cars - it samples pressure/temperature/speed many many times a second and adjusts your fuel delivery so that it 'always' runs perfectly.

Think of the stae of the computer industry when the Cypres was designed - never mind introduced. I'm not in the market for an AAD right now ($'s), but by the time I am, the Vigil will have been out for a while and will be more than astested as the Cypres was when IT gained acceptance. It seems smart enough to have earned a patent

-Dave

Time will tell.

As every new device that hit the market these days, the Vigil will likely have to go through a few glitches at the beginning. Let's hope we don't see too many two canopies out during the Vigil break in period!

As a skydiver, i'm very happy to see that a newcomer enters the AAD market. Prices are likely to go down a bit, because of the Vigil....... Hopefully.

Yves.

[mr2mk1g 10]

I don’t know if the following is HOW the vigil works... but it is ONE way in which it could. I admit the patent is very very confusing, and I’m someone who’s job is to interpreting the English language.

Lets start with what it knows:
*The vigil knows how high you start your dive from
*It knows how fast you are falling and monitors changes in speed
*From these two bits of information it can work out your altitude
*It knows how high you want the AAD to fire
*If it knows where you are and how fast you are falling it can predict how long it will take reach activation height at your current speed.
*It can tell if you change speed through pressure readings and recalculate to adjust its the time it predicts you will take to reach activation height.
*If you exceed this time frame... you have reached activation height and its time it did something.
*The fact that you change speed between different dives or even over the course of one dive doesn’t matter as it is constantly monitoring your decent rate and mapping your position in the sky relative to your activation height.
*Changing exit heights are irrelevant as it simply changes its calculations based upon the height at which it KNOWS you exit.

This system appears to differ from the Cypres in one key feature - the way it uses its ability to sample air pressure.

The Cypres uses this ability to simply say "I detect and air pressure of X therefore I must be 11000ft high... when the air pressure = Y I must fire".

The Vigil appears to use its ability to say "I detect an air pressure of X... a fraction of a second ago it was Y therefore I’m moving Zft per second. Given the fact that I know I started at 12,000ft, I must now be at 11000ft. I want to fire at 750ft. At this speed I have X many seconds till I have to fire. After another fraction of a second it samples again and performs the whole calculation over again to predict an updated time to activation.

I am unclear if the Vigil also uses the same system as the Cypres as a secondary way of determining its height - kind of as a back up.

I may be wrong, but that’s how I read the patent

Time will tell which method of working out activation height is the more reliable

[Casch 0]

That's basically how I understood the patent. I'm just wondering...why go through all the trouble of designing a high tech timer to activate the reserve, when the cypres concept is proven to work perfectly fine, and is soooo much simpler. I'm a firm believer in KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid.

I don't doubt that this process will prove to work just fine, but what's the point of making things so difficult? Instead of calculating 2 variables (speed and altitude) it's calculating 4 variables (speed, altitude, time passed, and time left). Unless the CYPRES patent makes it illegal to use 2 variable system, I would think the Vigil concept is just a waste of battery power.

[jumpndoc 0]

The better place to post this question would be on the Vigil website's FAQ. Get the info from those who KNOW not those who are trying to interpret a patent document - although I must say you did an excellent job...

[scottjaco 0]

I wonder if the Cypres 2 has better software for measuring altitude than the original Cypres...does anyone know the answer to this? I just got a Cypres2 installed on my rig today!

I think the Vigil comparing calculations of the previous jumps and using that to help calculate the current jump scares me!

There are just to many variable...exit altitute, temp.
fall rate (freestyle vs. RW). In the end....which calculation is the Vigil going to believe?

I would assume it would believe measurments that are taking place on the current jump before it would chose to go with data accumulated from previous jumps.....in which case.....WHAT IS THE POINT OF IT ALL.....if the Vigil is just going to do what a Cypres does....fire according to the current mesurements!

It does sound like a waste of proccessing power!

could someone explain this process?

scott

[pchapman 262]

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WHAT IS THE POINT OF IT ALL.....if the Vigil is just going to do what a Cypres does....fire according to the current mesurements!
It does sound like a waste of proccessing power!

If you think about it some more, it does matter. Consider the history of the Astra vs Cypres debates -- The Astra was not liked because it sounded like its algorithms were too simple, that it could too easily be fooled. Firing only based on "current measurements" would be terribly dangerous.

That all relates to the point I want to make:

To me perhaps the most important issue is how the device handles errors and fluctuations in air pressure.
I don't think it is clear to the skydiving community how either the Vigil or Astra does that.

If all the readings were perfectly smooth and accurate, it doesn't much matter whether the device just measures altitude based on pressure, or calculates when one will be at firing altitude based on speed calculated from pressure changes. The actual pressure readings are going to bounce around due to air turbulence, body position changes, etc.

Is working out altitude by integrating speed calculated from pressure better? Does all the integrating add error? Or how can it be used to make better estimates of the true altitude? Spikes in pressure readings would be recognized as not reflecting real altitude, as the skydiver could not be changing their freefall speed as suddenly as the readings would suggest. Algorithms to reject false data could be more sophisticated than just smoothing the pressure vs time curve.

[pchapman 262]

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I don't think it is clear to the skydiving community how either the Vigil or Astra does that.

Correction to what I wroted: Vigil or Astra or Cypres.

None of the companies have really explained their data analysis precesses.(And they should be able to do so without fully disclosing their proprietary algorithms?!)

[darkwing 4]

I don't see why the companies should disclose their algorithms. Do you expect the car company to disclose the algorithms of their electronic engine controls? They work hard to develop them and they shouldn't be or feel compelled to give them away.

-- Jeff
My Skydiving History

[pchapman 262]

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I don't see why the companies should disclose their algorithms. .

That's why I say they shouldn't have to tell us all the details. But since their algorithm is a major part of the product -- in the sense that it affects the safety and main purpose of the damn thing -- it would be nice if they'd proudly say a little bit about what they've engineered into it.
"So why is your product great?"
"It just is. We're smart & experienced people, trust us."