Autonomous sailing vessel
AssigneeAutonomous Marine Systems Inc.
InventorsLowell J. Berg, Eamon Carrig, Shawn Dooley, Ravijit Paintal
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An autonomous sailing vessel may include a hull, a mast, a sail, and a rudder. The mast may be mechanically coupled to the hull. The sail may be mechanically coupled to the mast. The rudder may be mechanically coupled to the hull. A heading of the autonomous sailing vessel may be regulated by actively controlling the rudder without actively controlling the sail. Alternatively or additionally, the autonomous sailing vessel may include an anticapsize stabilizer tank, a lidar system, and/or marine mammal monitoring and identification.
Claims19
An autonomous sailing vessel, comprising:
- a hull;
- a mast mechanically coupled to the hull;
- a sail mechanically coupled to the mast;
- a rudder mechanically coupled to the hull, wherein both a heading and a course of the autonomous sailing vessel are regulated by actively controlling the rudder;
- a rudder actuator mechanically coupled to the rudder, the rudder rotatable by the rudder actuator relative to the hull to regulate the heading and the course;
- and
- a control unit communicatively coupled to the rudder actuator and configured to operate the rudder actuator to actively control the rudder, wherein:
- the control unit executes a nested control loop comprising a heading control loop to regulate the heading and a course control loop to regulate the course;
- and
- the course control loop runs at a slower frequency than the heading control loop.
An autonomous sailing vessel, comprising:
- a hull;
- a mast mechanically coupled to the hull;
- a sail mechanically coupled to the mast;
- a rudder mechanically coupled to the hull;
- and
- a lidar system mechanically coupled to the hull, wherein:
- the autonomous sailing vessel further comprises a second mast mechanically coupled to the hull and a second sail mechanically coupled to the second mast, the lidar system positioned between the mast and sail spaced apart from the lidar system in a first direction and the second mast and the second sail spaced apart from the lidar system in a second direction opposite the first direction;
- or
- the lidar system is positioned fore or aft of the mast and the sail in close proximity to the mast or sail.
An autonomous sailing vessel, comprising:
- a hull;
- a mast mechanically coupled to the hull;
- a sail mechanically coupled to the mast;
- a rudder mechanically coupled to the hull;
- an acoustic sensor coupled to the hull and configured to generate a data signal that represents an underwater acoustic signal;
- a processor device coupled to the hull and communicatively coupled to the acoustic sensor and configured to analyze the data signal to identify a marine mammal vocalization from the underwater acoustic signal and to identify a corresponding marine mammal species responsible for the marine mammal vocalization;
- and
- an electrical power storage device coupled to the hull and electrically coupled to the processor device and configured to power the processor device.
An autonomous sailing vessel, comprising:
- a hull;
- a mast mechanically coupled to the hull;
- a sail mechanically coupled to the mast;
- a rudder mechanically coupled to the hull;
- and
- a stabilizer tank movable relative to the hull, the stabilizer tank movable between a stowed position in which the stabilizer tank is substantially above a waterline and a deployed position in which the stabilizer tank is substantially below the waterline.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.