Stone Aerospace, Inc.

Peter Kimball

William C Stone

Jason Kapit

Evan Clark

Jeremy Paulus

Kristof Richmond

Mark Scully

A system for automated rendezvous, docking, and capture of autonomous underwater vehicles at the conclusion of a mission comprising of comprised of a docking rod having lighted, pulsating (in both frequency and light intensity) series of LED light strips thereon, with the LEDs at a known spacing, and the autonomous underwater vehicle specially designed to detect and capture the docking rod and then be lifted structurally by a spherical end strop about which the vehicle can be pivoted and hoisted up (e.g., onto a ship). The method of recovery allows for very routine and reliable automated recovery of an unmanned underwater asset.

Method of retrieval for autonomous underwater vehicles

System and method for automated rendezvous, docking and capture of autonomous underwater vehicles

Growing community of inventors

Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Peter Kimball