DESCRIPTION
The population increase around the globe and also the increase of nuclear family set-ups have put pressure on available land resources and this has in turn put pressure on the agricultural land use, as the same area of the agricultural land has to support the increasing population. Thus there is a shortage in food supply. This had made people to turn to marine food resources and fresh water food resources to fill up the gap in the food supply.
Since the marine area is a vast area it is not viable to go in search of food resources, i.e. fishes and algae, all around the marine area. There must be some ways and means by which the location of the food resources should be identified and then the identified location has to be reached.
PRIOR ART & STATE OF THE ART
In the past the practice has been that of trial and error coupled with the knowledge and experience of the fisherman. But in recent times the fishing community has sought the help of science and technology to make fishing faster and at highly profitable rates. Sonar and/or Remote Sensing technologies and ocean biological and atmospheric sciences have been the building blocks of this latest endeavour in marine fisheries. The latest addendum to this list is the GPS, which helps in the navigation of the marine vehicle to reach the location of the identified resources.
There is no doubt these new technologies have reduced the time for fishing and made the activity simpler but the major concern has been that of the cost. The major disadvantages of the system are that the cost is exorbitant for a normal catamaran using fisherman and also for the trawler using fisherman and the use of Remote Sensing based information requires extensive infrastructure and also purchase of images at regular intervals. The latter aspect of the-presently used system hampers its usage for those countries, which do not have an infrastructure for processing Remotely Sensed images. With these disadvantages in mind, a GPS based technology for fishing is being proposed here.
The proposed technology tries to exploit the relationship between the fish population movement, climate and weather as well as the ability of the GPS to determine an important weather (meteorological) parameter "Integrated Precipitable Water Vapour" in short called IPWV.
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The system relies on a network of databuoys fitted with a single frequency GPS receiver, a data processor, and RF/MW transmitter and a Central Ground Control Station (CGCS) fitted with a GPS receiver, a transceiver, an embedded GIS and a data processor (a Central Databuoy Control Station can replace the CGCS if the fishing is done very far off from the shore). For the fisherman the equipment would be a PDA fitted with a single frequency GPS and a RF/MW receiver. The use of single frequency GPS receiver decreases the cost manifold and is the key factor in the reduction of cost of the proposed system.
The invention is represented as diagrams in the annexure, in which: Fig 1 represents the Setup of the entire system
Fig 2 represents the components of a Data buoy, which will form the network.
Fig 3 represents the components of a Central Data buoy Control Station. The Device D1 stated in our claim will be contained in the Fig 3.
Fig 4 represents the Fisherman's Hand-held unit that will comprise the Device D2 stated in our Claims above.
Fig 5 represents the Flow Chart for the working processes of the entire system.
IPWV
The process described below comprises the details required for the processes in the device Dl.
Concerning the millimetre-wave radio propagation model and attenuation prediction, it is possible to perform the estimation of integrated precipitable water vapour from meteorological data (radiosoundings), water vapour radiometers and phase measurements from GPS receivers. Accurate and frequent sampling of water vapour is obviously of great use for climatological research as well as operational weather forecasting.
Radiosondes produce an accurate measurement of the water vapour profile, but the temporal and spatial resolution is rather poor (they are typically launched every 6 to 12 hours, which may cause significant variations in water vapour to go undetected).
The databuoy network [Figure 2 of the List of Figures] observes continuously the GPS phase and code observations and then converts these observations to RINEX files in the separate data processor resident in the databuoy. These RINEX files are sent to the central ground control station [figure 3 of the List of Figures] through a transmitter fitted within the databuoy. The central ground control station via the transceiver receives the RINEX files. Then these RINEX files are processed together with the RINEX files of the CGCS GPS.
The data are processed to retrieve the tropospheric delay from the observations. With the tropospheric delay it is possible to estimate the Integrated Precipitable Water Vapour (IPWV) content in the atmosphere.
POTENTIAL FISHING ZONES
The process described below comprises the details required for the processes in the device Dl.
Information on the changing ocean is necessary to understand and to eventually predict the effects of the ocean on fish population. The evolving capabilities of Integrated Perceptible Water Vapour technique with conventional data collection techniques would provide a powerful tool towards fish forecasting and thus allowing sustainable management of living marine resources.
Techniques in the development of fishing grounds have used such oceanographic phenomena as up welling areas, temperature fronts, ocean color and the presence of large amounts of chlorophyll in the water as indicators of areas of fish stock congregations and fish stocks migration. Sea surface temperature and salinity and other oceanographic conditions can further assist to develop these areas known as potential fishing zones for forecasting of natural fluctuations of stocks, their congregations and migrations.
By developing a model that can determine the correlation between the atmospheric parameter of IPWV and the fish population, it becomes evident that we can predict the potential fishing zones.
Once these fishing zones are identified the polygons of these fishing zones are alone extracted from the map and transmitted via the transceiver.
MAP MATCHING
The process described below comprises the details required for the process in Device D2.
The polygons are received by the fishermen's PDA-fitted-with-GPS from the process in Dl. Then the polygons are map matched with the map resident in the PDA-fitted-with-GPS. The fishermen can then navigate to the potential fishing zones with ease, as the system also gives the shortest from the given location to the location of the resources.
Fuzzy controllers are used to control consumer products, such as washing machines, video cameras, and rice cookers, as well as industrial processes, such as cement kilns, underground trains, and robots. Fuzzy control is a control method based on fuzzy logic.
The map matching algorithms would be developed using Fuzzy Logic. Thereby, the Fuzzy controllers would be built with the map matching algorithms and would be implemented as part of the process on the device D2.
DISPLAY of VESSEL POSITION and the PFZ
The Device will be programmed with an application that will compute the shortest path between the Vessel and the Potential Fishing Zones and project the polygons that were matched with the maps on the screens of the hand-held device. The Claims stated in the Device D2 and the processes have been detailed in the description above.

WE CLAIM: -
1. A method of distinguishing and determining the amount of marine life more specifically to fish in a water area from IPWV measured therefrom, said method comprising the steps of: -
(a) obtaining a measurement of IPWV from the said water area, and
(b) determining the amount of said fishes in said water area from said measured amount by applying an algorithm relating to said respective measured IPWV values.
2. A method of distinguishing and determining the amount of marine life more specifically to fish in a water area from IPWV measured therefrom, said method comprising the steps of: -
(a) placing a plurality of navigation data including IPWV based measurements in a central navigation system,
(b) placing a navigation request for a navigation information on plurality of mobile devices,
(c) computing a navigation related information in the central navigation system, and
(d) coupling plurality of the mobile devices with the central navigation system for acquiring directly the request from the mobile devices and transmitting directly requested navigation information from navigation system to the mobile devices.
3. A method for determining and communicating potential fishing zones in a water area comprising: -
(a) receiving location information from a user, the location information comprising the actual location of the user,
(b) identifying plurality of potential fishing zones based on measured IPWV values,
(c) determining a nearest potential fishing zone from identified plurality of potential fishing zones, and
(d) communicating the nearest potential fishing zone to the user.
4. An IPWV based GPS operable system for marine navigation system over a predetermined water area comprising: -
(a) plurality of mobile navigation devices operable by users,
(b) a controller operable to receive the request information from a user, the request information atleast comprising the present location of the user,
(c) a central navigation server wirelessly coupled with the plurality of mobile navigation devices, the central navigation server operable to determine the nearest potential fishing zone from computed plurality of potential fishing zones, and
(d) the controller further operable to communicate the nearest potential fishing zone to the said navigation device,
the said system characterized in the computation of potential fishing
zones on IPWV reading based algorithm.
5. An IPWV based GPS operable system for marine navigation system over a predetermined water area as claimed in claim 4 wherein the mobile device has communication component adapted to wirelessly communicate with the central navigation system processor, a display for displaying navigation related information and a navigation component adapted to determine a location of the device, wherein the navigation component is atleast a GPS receiver and including PDA functionality.
6. An IPWV based GPS operable system for marine navigation system over a predetermined water area as claimed in claim 4 wherein the central navigation system comprises a central processor, a memory connected to the processor, memory having navigation related data, a navigation component to determine the IPWV measurement over the water area, a communication component including a wireless communication with plurality of mobile devices, wherein the memory further includes software adapted to perform the algorithm calculation based on IPWV measured to compute a plurality of potential fishing zones and to determine a nearest computed potential fishing zone from a set of potential fishing zones and further to determine the route from the user to the nearest potential fishing zone.
7. An IPWV based GPS operable system for marine navigation system over a predetermined water area as claimed in claim 6 wherein the memory is adapted to store navigation related data, the navigation related data including IPWV data,a number of fishing zones and data indicative of routes connecting the said fishing zones, further including software adapted to perform calculations with the IPWV measured data on the processor.
8. The method and system as claimed in claims 1 to 7 characterized in the water area being arranged into polygon blocks to form a plurality of fishing zones.
9. An IPWV based GPS operable system for marine navigation system over a predetermined water area as claimed in claims 4 to 7, wherein the mobile device is equipped with single frequency GPS receiver.
10. An IPWV based GPS operable system for marine navigation system over a predetermined water area as claimed in claims 4 to 7, wherein the mobile device may further comprise a single frequency GPS receiver, a PDA, a radio frequency receiver and a microwave receiver.