Thales

Thales Underwater Systems S.a.s.

Philippe Kerdraon

Jean-Philippe Goudeau

Florian Prevel

Didier Soreau

Claude Lemoine

An underwater device intended to be deployed in the water, the device includes a set of arms articulated to a support body having a reference axis r, the arms being able to be kept in a furled configuration and able to deploy into a deployed configuration wherein the arms extend about the reference axis r, the arms deploying by distal ends of the arms moving away from the axis r, a set of at least one bending spring stressed elastically in bending when the arms are kept in a furled configuration and able to relax when the arms are released from the furled configuration, the set of at least one bending spring being configured and arranged in such a way as to exert, on at least one of the arms, when the arms are released from the furled configuration, a thrust that instigates the deploying of the arms.

Deployable underwater device

A device that allows control of the navigation of a towed underwater device, such as a linear acoustic antenna. The device is equipped with a pair of horizontal wings and a pair of vertical wings. These wings are kept horizontal and vertical by pendular movement of the device about the antenna on which the device is fixed. The action of the horizontal wings, which influence only immersion, and of the vertical wings, which influence only the lateral offset, are thus decoupled. The power consumption of the device is reduced, thus allowing the device to be powered by internal batteries and allowing the device to be mounted on existing antennas.

Growing community of inventors

Brest, France

Philippe Kerdraon