Granted Patent B2

US 12,736,333 · App. 18/738,325 · Granted Sep 15, 2026

Inventors: Stephen T. Trickey (Arlington, VA); Brandon F. Redding (University Park, MD); Joseph B. Murray (Ellicott City, MD)

Assignee: The Government of the United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy

G01B11/255G01B11/16G01L1/242

Abstract

Claims (25)

1 . An apparatus comprising:

a cable, said cable comprising a length;

at least three curvature sensors located at at least three respective curvature sensor positions along the length of said cable and generating respective curvature values at the at least three respective curvature sensor positions;

at least one position sensor along the length of said cable and generating at least one positional value; and

a processor receiving the respective curvature values from said at least three curvature sensors and receiving the respective measured positional value from said at least one position sensor, said processor recovering at least three respective angles of twist at the at least three respective curvature sensor positions at least based on the respective curvature values and the at least one respective measured positional value,

wherein said cable comprises a cable shape,

wherein said processor recovering the at least three angle of twists at the respective curvature sensor positions by:

generating a naïve estimate of the cable shape based on the respective curvature values and free of the at least one respective measured positional value;

generating expected positional values based on the naïve estimate of the cable shape;

correcting the naïve estimate of the cable shape by minimizing an error between the expected positional values based on the naïve estimate of the cable shape and the at least one respective measured positional value.

2 . The apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein said at least one position sensor comprises one of:

at least one depth sensor, wherein the respective measured positional value is a respective measured depth value; and

at least one altimeter, wherein the respective measured positional value is a respective measured height value.

3 . The apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising one of:

a hydrophone array comprising said cable;

a volumetric sensor array comprising said cable;

a towed array comprising said cable;

a trip line array comprising said cable; and

a tethered remotely operated vehicle comprising said cable.

4 . The apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein each curvature sensor of said at least three curvature sensors comprises one of:

three strain sensors; and

three piezo-based curvature sensors.

5 . The apparatus according to claim 1 , further comprising:

at least one position sensor along the length of said cable and generating at least one positional value,

wherein said processor receives the respective curvature values from said at least three curvature sensors and receives the respective measured positional value from said at least one position sensor, said processor recovering at least three respective angles of twist at the at least three respective curvature sensor positions at least based on the respective curvature values and the at least one respective measured positional value.

Assignments (1)

Continuity (2)

References Cited (11)