Investigation on the mechanical design and manipulation hydrodynamics for a small sized, single body and streamlined I-AUV

Operations with Intervention Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (I-AUV) can not only realize automatic and accurate missions, but also save the pilots’ endeavors and reduce their fatigues. However, the performance of a small sized I-AUV is easily affected by its own restoring forces and hydrodynamic effects. A novel small sized single body and streamlined I-AUV has been developed for autonomous cruising and manipulation through the schemes comparisons and analysis on the restoring forces and hydrodynamic performance. In order to investigate I-AUV manipulation hydrodynamic performance during manipulation, water channel experiments and computation fluid dynamics (CFD) have been made on various operation postures. Moreover, CFD simulations and analysis have been expanded from water channel domain to infinite domain to obtain I-AUV manipulation hydrodynamic performance during forward cruising.