Determining ballast mass requirement for an unmanned underwater vehicle (100 fig 4) having at least one thruster (400, 402, 404, 406 fig 4) comprising determining a thrust requirement for the thrusters to provide the vehicle with an apparent weight in water S302 and in dependence on the thrust requirements determining the ballast mass required to provide the required weight in water S310. If there are two or more thrusters, the method may comprise determining the thrust requirement for each thruster to provide the vehicle with a required pitch and/or roll angles S306 and in dependence on the thrust requirement, determining the position (A-E fig 4) of the ballast mass required to maintain the required pitch and/or roll angles S312. These angles may be zero degrees to the horizontal. Predetermined positions that receive ballast mass may be analysed and positions may be selected to locate the ballast mass. The positions may also receive tooling equipment. The ballast mass may be determined in dependence on the discrete ballast masses within a set. The vertical thrust component of the thruster may be resolved. A method, system and computer program for determining ballast masses are disclosed.


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    Title :

    System, method and computer program for determining ballast for an underwater vehicle


    Contributors:
    TERRY WOOD (author)

    Publication date :

    2017-12-13


    Type of media :

    Patent


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English


    Classification :

    IPC:    B63G OFFENSIVE OR DEFENSIVE ARRANGEMENTS ON VESSELS , Angriffs- oder Verteidigungsanordnungen auf Schiffen



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