Research and Design of Semi-physical Motion Simulation Systemt of Buoyancy-driven Underwater Glider

As buoyancy-driven underwater gliders which have multi-functionality become more and more important instruments of monitoring and exploring the ocean, it is momentous to research and verify the performance of hardware of glider and the function of control software by establishing mathematical model and simulation. So a semi-physical motion simulation system of buoyancy-driven underwater glider is designed in this paper. Not only can this system simulate the underwater performance of glider in a virtual environment, but also it can accomplish the interaction between entity and virtual node using three-dimensional technical display. The semi-physical motion simulation system is used to simulate the behaviors and motions of glider in order to test the software, hardware, data interface and reliability of the glider without launching it into waters. Finally, comparative trials in virtual environment and underwater environment are performed respectively. The result shows that the simulation system can simulate the underwater exploration process of glider satisfactorily with error of maximum depth being less than 2m when maximum depth is set as 120m, and the mathematical models along with simulation algorithm can meet requirement of real-time, therefore successfully proved to be feasible and referential for the design of underwater buoyancy-driven glider.