Development of a Mobile Buoy with Controllable Wings: Design, Dynamics Analysis and Experiments

Abstract

Marine monitoring equipment such as Argo profiling buoys and underwater gliders are important devices for oceanographic research and marine resource exploration. In this study, a novel mobile buoy capable of vertical profiling motion like Argo profiling buoys and sawtooth gliding motion like underwater gliders is proposed. The proposed mobile buoy can switch between the two motion modes with controllable wings. To verify the feasibility of the proposed mobile buoy, a fluid–multibody coupling model considering multibody dynamics and hydrodynamics was developed to investigate the dynamic response. A scaled-down buoy prototype was fabricated and the feasibility of the two motion modes was experimentally investigated in a laboratory tank. The experimental results agree well with the results of numerical simulation. This work can be helpful for the design and analysis of this kind of mobile buoy.