MAKAI OCEAN ENGINEERING INC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N181-036

Description

Makai proposes to address the towed vertical array shape control problem by developing a technology for direct integration onto the vertical array: the SURTASS Vertical Array Control System (SVACS). The SVACS innovation will solve the issues of straightness, verticality and orientation without requiring expensive redesign of the arrays themselves and can be easily incorporated into the existing and new systems. The novel intermittent operating concept of the SVACS technology will avoid introducing acoustic noise at critical times.The promoted concept consists of thruster modules placed along the length of the array arranged to provide forces capable of restoring the system to vertical and accurately controlling the array shape. In addition to thrusters, each module will include sensors to inform the SVACS software controller. Array shape estimation and control of the thruster modules is recognized by Makai as an important development aspect of the proposed SVACS technology. Makai has unparalleled experience in this field and we will seek to leverage our experience to provide a high fidelity turnkey hydrodynamic control system. The technical objective of the proposed phase I study is to model, design and prove the SVACS concept via robust hydrodynamic modeling, risk reduction experiments and experienced ocean engineering.