Design and Hydrodynamic Analysis of Towing Device of the Automated Recovery of the AUV by the USV

Abstract

Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) has played an increasingly important role in seafloor exploration, marine landscape observation and marine military field in recent years. Because the AUV’s endurance and communication capability are very limited, the AUV need to be regularly recycled for energy replenishment and data transmission. As a small unmanned surface platform, Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) whose technical development has been relatively mature can able to connect underwater unmanned platform with floating unmanned platform. Therefore, the study of the interrelationship between AUV and USV is full of prospects and challenges. In order to establish the connection between USV and AUV to further achieve the purpose of USV recycling AUV, this paper designs a new type of towing device with attitude measurement and attitude adjustment based on the existing towing technology and the Bernoulli equation. And the device is introduced from the aspects of mechanical design, force analysis and motion simulation. Through numerical simulation, it is found that the stabilizing wing can provide downward pressure for the towing device and the tail rudder can provide the diving moment for the towing device, which can ensure the depth stability of the towing device. The attitude of the towing device can be adjusted in real time by adjusting the angle of the tail rudder. In conclusion, this way takes an important step towards the wider practical application of AUV.