About FutureWaves

Through a competitive proposal process, the Office of Naval Research selected the scientists and engineers at the Applied Physical Sciences Corp (APS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of General Dynamics, to lead the charge. The APS team still supports the ESMF program today and we envision the technology being deployed on every surface ship in the U.S. Fleet.

 

The photo to the left was taken during Pacific Horizon 2017, a joint military exercise, and shows the original ESMF application of FutureWaves technology. To support Military Sealift Command (MSC) seabasing operations, APS developed the system that can precisely measure ocean wave fields and provide Course and Speed Recommendations (see CSRM) to minimize motions during critical operations where millions of dollars of military assets are transferred via ramp from vessel to vessel (see Seabasing).

 

APS also took the technology further and developed a highly sophisticated x-band radar system that measures the orbital velocity of the waves, allowing the system to not only measure the characteristics of the waves, but also to actually time the incident waves and predict when they will meet the vessel’s path. This allows FutureWaves to apply the detailed wave information to a hydrodynamic model of the vessel and forecast what motions the vessel will incur for minutes into the future.

 

Recognizing the benefits that this technology would bring to the civilian market, the original U.S. Government solicitation for the ESMF Program intended to make this technology available to both military and civilian markets. FutureWaves seeks to serve that civilian market by increasing safety and efficiency throughout the offshore industry.