—Cummins’ equation is commonly used to describe
the motion of Wave Energy Converters (WECs), where the
radiation force is characterised by a convolution operation. The
computational effort associated with the solution of the convolution term, often represents a drawback for e.g. optimisation
or exhaustive-search studies. To overcome this disadvantage, and
given that the convolution operator intrinsically defines a dynamical system, the convolution term is commonly approximated
using suitable finite-order parametric models. To this end, the
Centre for Ocean Energy Research has recently presented a
moment-matching based identification method for the radiation
force subsystem and the complete force-to-motion WEC dynamics
(i.e. wave excitation force to device velocity). Motivated by
the theory and the obtained results, already reported by the
authors, the FOAMM MATLAB application has been developed,
which systematically implements the moment-matching based
identification strategy from raw frequency-domain data, provided
by hydrodynamic solvers, in a user-friendly fashion. The aim
of this paper is to describe the theoretical background behind
the identification strategy, and the structure, organisation and
characteristics of the developed application. Additionally, the
relevant modes of operation, along with the different options of
the toolbox are explained, and, at the end, a step-by-step example
of how to use the FOAMM application is provided, along with
recommendations from the author
