Automated Anchor Manager (AAM) with Chain Sensing

The US Navy and other early adopters of large uncrewed surface vessels face a suite of challenges converting these vessels to act, operate, and perform akin to their crewed counterparts. There is nuance in all levels of seamanship, including specifically anchoring activities which can involve chart planning, interpreting seafloor conditions, communicating to vessel navigation systems/personnel, and monitoring for emergent situations. Boston Engineering, along with our supporting partners Schoellhorn-Albrecht (winch/deck system advisors), and L3Harris (MUSV advisor), propose the Automated Anchor Manager (AAM) system for automated anchor planning and handling to advance anchoring capability for uncrewed systems. The AAM performs planning, execution, and monitoring activities of the full anchoring process from start to finish. This includes two components, the AAM Software Tool and the AAM Deck Hardware. The AAM Software tool generates optimized anchoring locations within a given bounding box; it tracks and monitors anchor deployment and weighing inclusive of environmental factors and it provides alerts on critical events (such as an exit from an expected swing circle). The AAM Deck Hardware accurately tracks the amount of chain deployed and locks chain in place with a pawl that can be released in an emergency. Using a reduced risk approach of increasingly complex testing, the AAM will provide an adaptable, versatile, and safe system, scalable for future vessels.