Design, hydrodynamics analysis, and control of an underwater glider with controllable wing mechanism

Abstract

Due to the effect of biofouling and different mission sensors that may be onboard, hydrodynamic coefficients of underwater glider (UG) may experience gradual or obvious changes, which increases the energy consumption and reduces the glide range. This paper proposes a controllable wing mechanism (CWM) for UG, which enables it adjust the hydrodynamic coefficients and kinematic performance without changing the net buoyancy. Only by two degrees of freedom (DoF), that CWM can realize the control of wingspan, sweep back angle and chord width. To apply the hydrodynamics controlled with CWM in glide model, the fitting precision of hydrodynamics function is improved based on backpropagation artificial neural network (BPANN). A nonlinear state observer based on finite impulse response (FIR) filter is employed for state estimation and random noise interference filtering to realize measurements and evaluation of velocity and reduce the attitude angle measurement error for UG. Then, the FIR-based fuzzy PID (FFPID) controller is established for a steady-state gliding motion control, which suppresses the unknown interference to stablize the system quickly. Finally, the effectiveness of the FFPID closed-loop controller and observer is verified through the simulation in matlab and the experimental test of the UG with CWMs in a water tank.