Development of a prototype unmanned surface vessel (USV) platform

This paper presents the development of a prototype unmanned surface vessel (USV) platform for water quality measurement. Based on several hull concept designs made using Solidworks, the catamaran design was determined as the most suitable for the platform due to its stability and manoeuvrability performance. The platform\u27s design was optimised using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis to study its resistance and dynamic flow. Hydrostatic simulation was done using Maxsurf to determine the geometry of the platform\u27s hull. Several displacements for selected drafts were obtained, which was used to estimate the maximum total load on board the platform. Glass reinforced plastic (GRP) composite material was selected for the hull\u27s fabrication due to its strength and light weight. Five layers of GRP were applied on the mould to get a strong structure. The development the overall system design of the platform consisted of electrical, mechanical, control and communications systems, and sensors according to the specific draft and displacement. The buoyancy test conducted for the completed prototype showed that its performance is consistent with the results of the hydrostatic simulation