Underwater vehicles
AssigneeBAE SYSTEMS plc
InventorMichael Alan Tull
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An underwater vehicle including a housing, an internal guidewire dispenser for storing and deploying a guidewire, and a splice cavity defining a storage space, for carrying and deploying a splice between the internal guidewire and an external guidewire and excess guidewire resulting from splicing the internal and external guidewires.
Claims14
An underwater vehicle comprising;
- a housing;
- an internal guidewire dispenser for storing and deploying an internal guidewire;
- and
- an internal splice cavity, defining a storage space, for carrying a splice between the internal guidewire and an external guidewire and excess guidewire resulting from splicing the internal and external guidewires, said splice cavity being configured to deploy the splice and excess guidewire from the vehicle.
A method of assembling an underwater vehicle having a housing and a wire command link to connect the vehicle to a launch platform, the link including an internal guidewire stored in an internal dispenser and an external guidewire stored in an external dispenser, the method comprising the steps of:
- a) mounting a splice cavity having a storage space in the housing for carrying a splice between the internal guidewire and the external guidewire and excess guidewire resulting from splicing the internal and external guidewires, and for deploying the splice and excess guidewire from the vehicle,
- b) dispensing sufficient external guidewire from the external dispenser to carry out a fusion splice and passing the sufficient external guidewire through the splice cavity and the internal dispenser,
- c) dispensing sufficient internal guidewire from the internal dispenser to carry out a fusion splice and passing the sufficient internal guidewire through the splice cavity,
- d) fusion splicing the sufficient external guidewire and the sufficient internal guidewire, and
- e) coiling excess guidewire from the fusion splicing and the fusion splice into the storage space.
A method of assembling an underwater vehicle having a housing and a wire command link to connect the vehicle to a launch platform, the link including an internal guidewire stored in an internal dispenser and an external guidewire stored in an external dispenser, the method comprising the steps of:
- a) mounting a splice cavity having a storage space in the housing,
- b) dispensing sufficient external guidewire from the external dispenser to carry out a fusion splice and passing the sufficient external guidewire through the splice cavity and the internal dispenser,
- c) dispensing sufficient internal guidewire from the internal dispenser to carry out a fusion splice and passing the sufficient internal guidewire through the splice cavity,
- d) fusion splicing the sufficient external guidewire and the sufficient internal guidewire, and
- e) coiling excess guidewire from the fusion splicing and the fusion splice into the storage space, said step of coiling including,
- e1) first coiling excess internal guidewire from fusion splicing into the storage space,
- e2) and then coiling the fusion splice into the storage space,
- e3) and then coiling excess external guidewire from fusion splicing into the storage space.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.