Numerical Investigation on Hydrodynamic Performance of a Portable AUV

Abstract

This paper conducts a numerical investigation on the hydrodynamic performance of a portable autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). The portable AUV is designed to cruise and perform some tasks autonomously in the underwater world. However, its dynamic performance is strongly affected by hydrodynamic effects. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate the hydrodynamic performance of the portable AUV for its accurate dynamic modeling and control. In this work, based on the designed portable AUV, a comprehensive hydrodynamic performance investigation was conducted by adopting the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. Firstly, the mechanical structure of the portable AUV was briefly introduced, and the dynamic model of the AUV, including the hydrodynamic term, was established. Then, the unknown hydrodynamic coefficients in the dynamic model were estimated through the towing experiment and the plane-motion-mechanism (PMM) experiment simulation. In addition, considering that the portable AUV was affected by wave forces when cruising near the water surface, the influence of surface waves on the hydrodynamic performance of the AUV under different wave conditions and submerged depths was analyzed. Finally, the effectiveness of our method was verified by experiments on the standard models, and a physical experiment platform was built in this work to facilitate hydrodynamic performance investigations of some portable small-size AUVs.