ACUA OCEAN
Magnus Gregory – 12/02/24
Background:
ACUA Ocean are developing zero-emission, autonomous vessels with the capability to deploy and retrieve a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) for use across the maritime sector. We were involved in an Innovate UK competition (a research grant) to help assess the safety and operational windows of their small waterplane area twin hull (SWATH) design. These kinds of hulls offer some benefits to the seakeeping performance when compared with traditional monohulls.
In conjunction with the University of Southamption department for Ship Science we conducted some experiments to evaluate the responses of the vessel to various sea states and to also assess its resistance while towed in calm water and in waves.
What we offered:
Accelerations were measured on the vessel with traditional accelerometers. The motions of the main hull and the ROV were measured using a Qualisys Motion Capture system – similar to the ones used by large movie studios to track the motions of actors.
This motion capture allows us to generate non-dimensional transfer functions for pitch and heave. These can be used by ACUA to understand what the motion and accelerations of the vessel might be given a particular sea state. Therefore, onboard equipment can be selected to operate in these conditions or operational windows can be set to ensure that the vessel can operate safely.