Multi-operated HIL Test Bench for Testing Underwater Robot’s Buoyancy Variation System

Nowadays underwater gliders have become to play a vital role in ocean exploration and allow to obtain the valuable information about underwater environment. The traditional approach to the development of such vehicles requires a thorough design of each subsystem and conducting a number of expensive full scale tests for validation the accuracy of connections between these subsystems. However, present requirements to cost-effective development of underwater vehicles need the development of a reliable sampling and testing platform that allows the conducting a preliminary design of components and systems (hardware and software) of the vehicle, its simulation and finally testing and verification of missions. This paper describes the development of the HIL test bench for underwater applications. Paper discuses some advantages of HIL methodology provides a brief overview of buoyancy variation systems. In this paper we focused on hydraulic part of the developed test bench and its architecture, environment and tools. Some obtained results of several buoyancy variation systems testing are described in this paper. These results have allowed us to estimate the most efficient design of the buoyancy variation system. The main contribution of this work is to present a powerful tool for engineers to find hidden errors in underwater gliders development process and to improve the integration between glider’s subsystems by gaining insights into their operation and dynamics