Autonomous Hull Grooming Vehicle

The objective of this STTR is to develop a highly autonomous hull grooming system that can be operated easily and cost effectively with minimal supervision. The focus of the Phase 1 effort was to design and characterize the navigation system that can provide the required accurate on-hull navigation. The focus of the Phase 2 Base effort is to demonstrate closed loop autonomous control for relative positioning from primary fixes established on the hull. In Phase 2 Option, we will deliver a complete hull-grooming system to a program sponsor customer for fleet integration and evaluation.Our Phase 2 proposal develops an autonomous hull grooming vehicle prototype providing less than 0.15m RMS error over 1200m of grooming area, the equivalent of the groomable region on one side of a DDG-51 hull. Implemented through an open architecture software model, our solution is vehicle agnostic and provided in a stand-alone attachment containing the navigation system, system autonomy, sensor, hull crawling tracks, hull attachment method, and grooming tool. The proposed navigation strategy is based on an Inertial Navigation System utilizing a novel alignment method and aiding sensors for error correction and bounding while on the ship hull.