Determination of operating parameters of an AUV following a preplanned trajectory using hydrodynamic analysis data

This study aims to obtain performance parameters of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) following a predetermined trajectory on the basis of varying hydrodynamic characteristics depending on angular positions. Performing sharp manoeuvres on the trajectory is handled by the optimum configuration of rotation angles along vertical, longitudinal and transverse axes. In the meantime, it is necessary to keep the thrust, drag and lift effects at proper values. With this approach, a mission scenario was set for AUV to circumnavigate a marine vessel along its waterline within a particular margin. The trajectory coordinates generated according to the determined scenario were converted to the ideal trajectory by cubic spline curve fitting method. Based on the determined trajectory, a navigation plan consisting of linear distances and rotation angles was created for energy calculation. In the following phase of the study, in compliance with angular position information received from the navigation plan, hydrodynamic impacts on the AUV were obtained by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis based on Finite Volume Method (FVM). CFD analysis was run for calculating the hydrodynamic coefficients, total resistance and moments acting on AUV based on roll and yaw angle variations. The resulting hydrodynamic data was used to evaluate the energy requirement which provides performance parameters of AUV navigating along its trajectory