Theoretical Minimum Uncertainty of Single-Molecule Localizations Using a Single-Photon Avalanche Diode Array

Optical microscopes are fundamentally limited to a resolution of several hundreds of nanometers by the diffraction of light. Single-molecule localization microscopy (SMLM) circumvents this limit by sparsely exciting fluorescent molecules at different time instances. Single molecules can subsequently be localized with improved precision over the...

Motion analysis of suspended jacket transport with the Heerema SSCV Sleipnir: Comparison of model jacket motions vs actual jacket motions based on motion measurements and exploration of crane fatigue

This research explores the development of an accurate yet fast methodology to use measured vessel motions for a fatigue damage calculation in the cranes during suspended transport. First, the kinematics, definitions and particulars of the system of interest – the vessel including crane and suspended jacket - are provided. Then, literature...

Marine Diesel engine response to ventilation loads

Ventilation events are the result of masses of air being transported from the water surface along the hull, through the propeller plane. Previous research in literature has shown that ventilation induces large and sudden variations of the load on the propeller. The response of the propulsion system had not been documented before. This is a...

Optimal Sensor Placement for Calibration-Involved Radio Astronomy Imaging Applications

In radio astronomy (RA), one of the key tasks is the estimation of the celestial source powers, i.e. imaging. To maximize the performance, it is crucial to optimize the receiver locations before the construction of a telescope array. However, although system calibration is an integral and crucial process of imaging, it has rarely been addressed...

A two-dimensional boundary element method for floating cylinders of arbitrary shape in frequency domain with power take off and second order predictions

A two-dimensional (2D) panel method is developed to find the first and second order wave forces acting on a semi-submerged cylinder in regular waves. The panel method is based on potential flow and the waves are modeled for both finite and infinite water depth. The motion is limited to heave, but allows for extensions to other modes as well. It...

A methodology for assessing power performance of Wave Energy Converters, applied to a quasi-rigid submerged pressure differential device

In the transition to renewable energy, harvesting the power from oceanic waves is often mentioned to be next step after the deployment of wind energy technology. Although many different solutions for wave energy conversion (WEC) are being developed and financial support schemes exist, commercially extracting this energy seems however to be...

Improvement of fatigue damage prediction for the Balder J-lay tower during transits

Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC) is a contractor that transports and installs large structures at sea. For this purpose, HMC operates four crane vessels of which three are semi-submersibles (Thialf, Balder and Hermod) and one is a mono hull (Aegir). The Balder is equipped with a J-lay tower for pipelay in deep water. During transits, when the...

Identification of response amplitude operators for ships based on full scale measurements

Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC) operates several crane vessels, barges and tug boats for the transportation, the installation and the removal of offshore facilities. To achieve safe and successful projects, the accurate prediction of vessel motions is of great importance. Vessel motions are calculated on the basis of wave energy spectra and...

SLAMming with Spheros: An impact-based approach to Simultaneous Localization and Mapping

The Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) problem for mobile robots aims at consistently building a map of an unknown environment while simultaneously determining its position within this map. From a control-theoretic viewpoint, it is somehow analogous to simultaneously estimating the states and output map of the system. In the robotics...

Design and analysis of a semi-submersible floating wind turbine with focus on structural response reduction

Floating structures as spar, semi-submersibles and TLP have been proposed for offshore wind turbines for deep waters (>60m) according to the report of Arapogianni, Moccia, Williams, & Phillips (2011), where bottom fixed sub-structures are technically and economically not feasible. Several floating concepts have been designed and just some of...

The effect of sloshing in partially filled spherical LNG tanks on ship motions

This report describes two methods to analyse the effect of sloshing on ship motions. The first method applies linear potential theory on both the barge and the internal tanks. For the barge the radiation, diffraction and incoming wave potentials are solved. For the internal tanks only the radiation potential is calculated, as there are obviously...

Complex Factor Analysis

Many techniques for array processing assume either that the system has a calibrated array or that the noise covariance matrix is known. If the noise covariance matrix is unknown, training or other calibration techniques are used to find it. In this thesis another approach to the problem of unknown noise covariance is presented. The factor...