Smart-Tether-Based Automated Hull Grooming

KCF Technologies will design an intelligent, autonomous, lightweight, low-cost system for grooming Navy vessel hulls, utilizing KCFs existing Smart Tether shape sensing technology to determine the real-time shape of the grooming vehicles umbilical tether, and employing multiple auxiliary technologies to improve the accuracy of the tether positioning system. These technologies will include physical and video odometry for tracking distance traveled over the hull of the vehicle, as well as an automatic tether deployment and retraction system for controlling the amount of tether deployed. The tether deployment system will limit deployed tether to help avoid entanglements and excess drag on the vehicle, as well as providing a controlled operating envelope for the positioning technologies to work within. During Phase I, KCF and research partner Penn State will perform candidate sensor qualification and modeling to assemble the necessary hardware and software capabilities for autonomous hull navigation. During Phase II, KCF will engage with ROV manufacturing partner VideoRay LLC to build a working prototype autonomous hull-grooming system. Testing will be performed in a realistic field environment to confirm functionality. KCF is uniquely qualified for this topic due to its considerable experience in underwater navigation, ruggedized industrial device design, and ROV hardware integration.