Automated Recovery of the UUV Based on the Towed System by the USV

Abstract

With the development of unmanned systems, automated launch and recovery of an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) has become a bottleneck technology. Using an Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) to recover an UUV has become one of the direction of the future development of marine unmanned systems. At present, some research institutions have proposed the program using an USV recovering an UUV, but the maturity is not good. In order to achieve an USV autonomous recovering an UUV, this paper designs a recovery device for the USV to recover an UUV. The device is connected by rope to a winch fixed to the USV, with a V-shaped wing below for maintaining the stability of the device. By this device, the USV can launch and recovery the UUV autonomously. This paper first introduces the state of the art for the autonomous recovery, and then analyzes the design background, the structure and stability of recovery device was given. Finally, the dynamic process of an UUV underwater docking was simulated by using hydrodynamic software CFX, and the change of resistance when the recovery device was docked under different working conditions was obtained. The numerical simulation shows that when the UUV moves closer to the recovery device, the viscous resistance of the UUV gradually becomes larger. When the UUV approaches the recovery device, the pressure resistance rapidly decreases. However, the total resistance change of the UUV first increases and then decreases. In addition, the recovery device designed in this paper has good stability and has a certain guiding significance for the dynamic recovery of an UUV in the future.