Investigation on the induced electrical wakes generated by underwater vehicles

Abstract

The induced electrical wake generated by underwater vehicles in the conductive seawater subject to the geomagnetic field can offer significant information for non-acoustic detection. However, the crucial demand in actual detection requires the sophisticated detection technology to capture the variations in the wake, which has not been experimentally explored. In this paper, an underwater measurement platform, which is capable of accurately capturing the weak electrical signature, is developed to verify the detectability of the induced electric field in the wake. Besides, a towing system is designed and established to generate the wake driving the motion of the conducting seawater in the current experiment. The results indicate that the induced electric field distributions in the wake demonstrate prominent peak characteristics. The detectable intensity of the measured electric signatures in the wake can range from 1 to 3 μV/m, primarily concentrated within the extremely low frequency band below 1 Hz. Additionally, the induced electric field intensity is positively correlated with the towing velocity and demonstrates a similar evolutionary trend. Subsequently, the numerical simulations are performed to not only cross-validate the measurement results but also further demonstrate the detailed distribution of the electrical wake evolution. These findings illustrate the feasibility of detection based on the induced electric field disturbance signal in the wake, which holds potential for non-acoustic detection and tracking of underwater targets.