The Navys primary means of rescuing personnel from a disabled submarine is the Submarine Rescue Diving and Recompression System (SRDRS). The vehicle that descends to the disabled submarine to pick up the crew is a very large Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) with its own specialized launch and recovery gear. Since the rescue system is manned, a timely, robust, and safe launch and recovery in potentially rough seas is essential. Proposed here is a retrofit capability for the launch and recovery system that will improve heave compensation capability and allow the system to work on any vessel of opportunity without tuning adjustments. New sensors will be added to the system to utilize all available boat motion information, and a Ship Observer algorithm will be developed. The Ship Observer algorithm is a model-based approach, but has the capability to adapt itself and converge to an accurate model of the ship motion and provide higher quality inputs to the winch control system. Phase I will assess the potential for improved performance from these two techniques, evaluate the current launch and recovery system equipment, and produce a preliminary design for a retrofit active heave compensation system.
Benefit: The technical approach outlined here would not only benefit SRDRS, but could be retrofit on many in service heave compensation systems for a performance boost without investing in massive and costly hardware changes. For the Navy, better heave compensation means greater ability to operate safely in spite of weather conditions. For oil and gas companies, it means more time can be spent working and less costly ship time is spent waiting for weather to cooperate. With a low-cost retrofit approach, there is a favorable cost-benefit to upgrading heave compensation capability.
Keywords: winch, winch, Control, remotely operated vehicle, Heave Compensation, Launch and Recovery
