Flexible Aquatic Flight Inspired Propulsion for Unmanned Underwater Vehicles
Stephen Boyd (Maritime Engineering), James Blake (Maritime Engineering), Alexander Phillips (National Oceanography Centre)
Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) are now commonplace from survey and inspection to monitoring and defence. Fulfilling a diverse range of missions requires oftentimes unique solutions to the vehicle design with some limited options for payload packages. Defence applications of UUVs are particularly challenging due to additional requirements for stealth, energy efficiency to enable long-term persistent operation and the need to operate in complex domains such as under ice or in littoral waters. Thus, robotic solutions are being required with very deep diving capability, high propulsive efficiency, high manoeuvrability and low acoustic signatures. Previous research (e.g. Haroutunian & Murphy, 2012; Phillips et al., 2012) has shown how mission requirements for UUVs can be mapped to biological species and where bioinspired solutions can be obtained to meet these needs. This proposal aims to improve the hydrodynamic efficiency of 3D oscillating flexible hydrofoils inspired by penguin aquatic flight for propulsion and manoeuvring of UUVs. The research will take advantage of an existing 3-axis flapping foil rig (NIMBLE) and explore the influence of passive and active flexibility of flapping foils on performance flight for propulsion and manoeuvring. The project will measure the extent of foil deformation due to hydrodynamic loading using noncontact measurement techniques.
Eligibility: UK rates (subject to fund availability)
Start date: October 2023 (subject to fund availability)
Application deadline: August 2023
CIVIL, MARITIME
AND ENVIRONMENTAL
ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
University of Southampton
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CIVIL, MARITIME
AND ENVIRONMENTAL
ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
University of Southampton
Explore our website:
Contact us:
+44(0)23 8059 5000
+44(0)23 8059 3131
University of Southampton
University Road
Southampton
SO17 1BJ
United Kingdom
© 2020 Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering Department
© 2020 Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering Department