The Importance of a Gyro Stabilized Platform

The Importance of a Gyro Stabilized Platform

Whether your boat is a large offshore-running center console or a sportfisherman’s yacht, having a gyro stabilized platform aboard will help to keep things a bit more steady when dealing with anything other than bathtub-calm water. And this is especially true if you’re tracking fish or wildlife with a high-end pan and tilt camera system, as the gyro stabilized platform can make it possible to focus and shoot with great precision while reducing image blurring, distracting shake, and loss of pointing capability due to boat motions.

A gyro stabilized platform is also essential for maritime fields such as public security and fire control, where it helps to ensure the visual axis stability of photoelectric equipment carried by a moving carrier vehicle. This is achieved by the use of a gyro based Attitude Heading Reference System (AHRS) that senses the carrier vehicle’s Roll, Pitch and Yaw angles to compensate for sensor inputs. Its application also extends to rotary and mobile payloads such as radars, laser rangefinders, hyperspectral cameras and single or multi-sensor imaging systems.

It can be a challenge to assemble and validate a reliable model of the dynamic behavior of hybrid offshore energy platforms, particularly because of the complexity of the mechanical structure of these structures and the large variation of the environmental conditions in which they operate. This is why the development of a gyroscope-based stabilization system for hybrid wind-wave technologies is a key challenge.

The Sea Flower floater, designed by Fincantieri and equipped with a gyroscope-based power production system, is a case in point. The gyroscopes not only stabilize the floater by damping wave and wind-induced motion, but they also produce additional power for the grid.

This extra energy is measured as the percentage increase in total power output when the gyroscopes are deployed, compared to the performance of the system without gyroscopes. This value reaches values up to +120% when the mean wind speed and the wind turbine power are low.

In short, the gyroscopes on the Sea Flower floater are an essential part of this power-producing system, as they are capable of producing both electricity and extra power to the grid even under harsh sea conditions. This has proven to be a valuable benefit not only for the energy market but for the environment as well. It is therefore important to consider this type of innovation when designing new marine renewable systems.