Dynamics Modeling and Simulation of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles with Appendages

To provide a simulation system platform for designing and debugging a small autonomous underwater vehicle＇s （AUV） motion controller, a six-degree of freedom （6-DOF） dynamic model for AUV controlled by thruster and fins with appendages is examined. Based on the dynamic model, a simulation system for the AUV＇s motion is established. The different kinds of typical motions are simulated to analyze the motion performance and the maneuverability of the AUV. In order to evaluate the influences of appendages on the motion performance of the AUV, simulations of the AUV with and without appendages are performed and compared. The results demonstrate the AUV has good maneuverability with and without appendages.

Virtual Reality Simulation of Fuzzy-logic Control during Underwater Dynamic Positioning

In this paper, graphical-user-interface （GUI） software for simulation and fuzzy-logic control of a remotely operated vehicle （ROV） using MATLABTM GUI Designing Environment is proposed. The proposed ROV＇s GUI platform allows the controller such as fuzzy-logic control systems design to be compared with other controllers such as proportional-integral-derivative （PID） and sliding-mode controller （SMC） systematically and interactively. External disturbance such as sea current can he added to improve the modelling in actual underwater environment. The simulated results showed the position responses of the fuzzy-logic control exhibit reasonable performance under the sea current disturbance.

Thrust producing mechanisms in ray-inspired underwater vehicle propulsion

This paper describes a computational study of the hydrodynamics of a ray-inspired underwater vehicle conducted concurrently with experimental measurements. High-resolution stereo-videos of the vehicle＇s fin motions during steady swimming are obtained and used as a foundation for developing a high fidelity geometrical model of the oscillatory fin. A Cartesian grid based immersed boundary solver is used to examine the flow fields produced due to these complex artificial pectoral fin kinematics. Simulations are carried out at a smaller Reynolds number in order to examine the hydrodynamic performance and understand the resultant wake topology. Results show that the vehicle＇s fins experience large spanwise inflexion of the distal part as well as moderate chordwise pitching during the oscillatory motion. Most thrust force is generated by the distal part of the fin, and it is highly correlated with the spanwise inflexion. Two sets of inter-connected vortex rings are observed in the wake right behind each fin. Those vortex rings induce strong backward flow jets which are mainly responsible for the fin thrust generation.

Cooperative path planning for multi-AUV in time-varying ocean flows

For low-speed underwater vehicles, the ocean currents has a great influence on them, and the changes in ocean currents is complex and continuous, thus whose impact must be taken into consideration in the path planning. There are still lack of authoritative indicator and method for the cooperating path planning. The calculation of the voyage time is a difficult problem in the time-varying ocean, for the existing methods of the cooperating path planning, the computation time will increase exponentially as the autonomous underwater vehicle（AUV） counts increase, rendering them unfeasible. A collaborative path planning method is presehted for multi-AUV under the influence of time-varying ocean currents based on the dynamic programming algorithm. Each AUV cooperates with the one who has the longest estimated time of sailing, enabling the arrays of AUV to get their common goal in the shortest time with minimum timedifference. At the same time, they could avoid the obstacles along the way to the target. Simulation results show that the proposed method has a promising applicability.

A MATRIX-FREE IMPLICIT METHOD FOR INCOMPRESSIBLE FLOW AROUND 3D COMPLEX UNDERWATER BODIES

A fast, matrix-free implicit method based on the Lower-Upper Symmetric Gauss-Seidel （LU-SGS） method was developed to solve the three-dimensional incompressible Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations on multi-block structured grids. The method was applied to the simulations of a variety of flowfields around 3D complex underwater bodies with different appendages. The numerical procedure and results show that the method is efficient, reliable and robust for steady viscous flow simulations.

Extraction and application of the low dimensional dynamical component from underwater acoustic target radiating noise

Signal processing in phase space based on nonlinear dynamics theory is a new method for underwater acoustic signal processing. One key problem when analyzing actual acoustic signal in phase space is how to reduce the noise and lower the embedding dimen- sion. In this paper, local-geometric-projection method is applied to obtain fow dimensional element from various target radiating noise and the derived phase portraits show obviously low dimensional attractors. Furthermore, attractor dimension and cross prediction error are used for classification. It concludes that combining these features representing the geometric and dynamical properties respectively shows effects in target classification.

Investigation on method for measuring dynamic shear modulus of underwater acoustic structure materials

A new method is described to measure the dynamic shear modulus of underwater acoustic structure materials in a small anechoic water tank by using a broadband parametric source, a precise coordinate installation and techniques of signal processing in the frequency range of 20 kHz - 100 kHz. The typical size of material samples is 500×500 mm2. Basic principles, experiment installation and measured results are also presented