System and method for underway autonomous replenishment of ships
AssigneeRaytheon BBN Technologies Corp.
InventorsWilliam Bowles Coney, John Philip Granville, Edin Insanic
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An autonomous loading/unloading system and method for transferring material includes: a buoy for releasing onto water; a messenger line coupled to the buoy for being pulled; a carrier line loop coupled to the messenger line for being pulled, where a payload is coupled to the carrier loop for transferring the material to or from an unmanned ship; a fetch/release platform to fetch or release the payload from or onto the water; a loading/unloading dock for the payload; a plurality of line guides for guiding the carrier loop; and a platform-to-payload interconnect for autonomous loading or unloading of the material from/to the payload.
Claims20
An autonomous loading or unloading system for transferring material to or from an unmanned ship comprising:
- a messenger line for being pulled by the unmanned ship;
- a carrier line loop coupled to the messenger line for being pulled by the unmanned ship, wherein a payload is coupled to the carrier loop for transferring the material to or from the unmanned ship;
- a loading/unloading dock for the payload;
- a plurality of line guides for guiding the carrier loop, wherein the carrier line loop is pulled by the sending ship in a first direction to move the payload from the unmanned ship, and pulled in a second direction opposite to the first direction to move the payload to the unmanned ship;
- and
- a platform-to-payload interconnect for autonomous loading or unloading of the material from/to the payload.
An autonomous method for loading or unloading material on or form an unmanned ship comprising:
- pulling a messenger line;
- autonomously pulling a carrier line loop coupled to the messenger line, wherein a payload is coupled to the carrier loop for transferring the material;
- autonomously guiding the carrier loop by a plurality of line guides, wherein the carrier line loop is autonomously pulled in a first direction to move the payload from the sending ship to the unmanned ship, and autonomously pulled in a second direction opposite to the first direction to move the payload from the unmanned ship to the sending ship;
- and
- autonomously loading or unloading the material from/to the payload via a platform-to-payload interconnect.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.