Individual Report

Patent Number: 6,138,604

Title: Pelagic free swinging aquatic vehicle

Inventor:

Assignee: The Charles Stark Draper Laboratories, Inc. (Cambridge, MA)

Summary of Patent: This patent protects a free swimming aquatic vehicle that consists of a forebody and an afterbody. The rigid forebody has a predetermined volume and consists of a watertight chamber. The flexible afterbody has a smaller volume than the forebody, and includes the structure for the maneuvering and propulsion of the vehicle. The afterbody also includes the drive system, which provides a traveling sinusoidal wave motion.

Key Elements of Patent: It is preferred that the volume of the forebody comprise 50%-70% of the envelope displacement of the vehicle. The forebody must include dry space for an energy source or payload. Perhaps most importantly, it is also to include a pressure hull. The energy source may include a battery, a fuel cell, or an air independent thermal engine. The inventors claim that the vehicle is capable of diving as well as other out of plane movements.

Assessment of Patent: Overall, I really enjoyed this concise patent despite its many grammatical and spelling errors. I don’t recall ever reading a patent with any corrections before, so when I saw that there was a correction filed for this one, I was excited. Of all the mistakes that I noticed, however, the only correction was for a mistake that I hadn’t noticed: the title! The inventors were probably too lazy to fix the rest since their meanings can be inferred, but this one changes the entire invention. The patent office has left the error in place. I suppose that this is standard procedure so that the readers can see everything that a company has changed and also to discourage any tampering.

I was, however, impressed by the simplicity of the claims. Although they didn’t go into very much detail, I was able to get a real feel for the invention before I was able to view the figures. The inventors simply stated that artificial muscles were used in the vehicle. This makes me wonder whether the muscle arrangements were withheld because they are simply the same as a real fish (which species then?) or because they have been modified and therefore should be kept secret. The inventors didn’t mention whether or not the arrangements could differ according to the specific applications of the vehicle.