• IEMEK Journal of Embedded Systems and Applications
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.25-31
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• 2019

An underwater glider is a type of autonomous unmanned vehicle and it advances using a vertical zig-zag glide. For this purpose, the position of an internal battery is regulated to control its attitude, and the amount of water in a buoyancy bag is regulated to control the depth. Underwater glider is suitable for a long-distance mission for a long time, because the required energy is much smaller than the conventional autonomous unmanned vehicle using propeller propulsion system. In this paper, control of horizontal tail wing is newly added to the conventional battery position and buoyancy control. The performance of the proposed controller is shown through Matlab simulation.

• IEMEK Journal of Embedded Systems and Applications
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.343-350
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• 2017

Underwater glider with a single buoyancy engine could generally obtain propulsive forces by moving the center of buoyancy and gravity. Futhermore, The hull and internal structure of underwater glider are designed according to the purpose of long-time operation, high speed and a wide variety of payloads (sensors, communications and etc.). In this paper, Ray-type underwater glider featuring flatfish is considered in view of hydrodynamics. The hull design is especially performed by the analysis of fluid resistance and dynamic performance. The resistance performance is analyzed using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). In addition, a simulation program is implemented in order to verify the validity of dynamics modeling and dynamic performances.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.546-551
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• 2014

This paper addresses a feedback linearization control problem for the nonlinear dynamics of an underwater glider system. We consider the buoyancy and moment as control inputs, which come from the mass variation and elevator control, respectively. Moment-to-force coupling increases the nonlinearities, which make the controller design difficult. By using a feedback linearization technique, we convert the nonlinear underwater glider to an equivalent linear model and design a linear controller. The controller for the equivalent converted linear system is designed using sufficient conditions in terms of linear matrix inequalities. Then, the control input of the nonlinear model of an underwater glider is formulated from the linear control input. An experimental examination is implemented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed technique.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.381-388
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• 2016

An underwater glider makes it easy to explore a wide area with low power. However, an underwater glider is difficult to use for rapid collection, because the surfacing location cannot be predicted after a dive. Thus, simulation research is needed to predict the swimming path. In this paper, based on research, a linearized equation is derived for the drag coefficient at each angle of attack by assuming the boundary conditions for the Slocum underwater glider and performing a computational flow analysis.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.269-286
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• 2023

Autonomous Underwater Gliders (AUGs) are a type of Underwater Vehicles that move without the help of a standard propeller. Gliders use buoyancy engines to vary their weight or buoyancy and traverse with the help of the Lift and Drag forces developed from the fuselage and the wings. The Lift and Drag Coefficients, also called Hydrodynamic coefficients (HDCs) play a major role in glider dynamics. This paper examines the effect of the different types of glider fuselages based on the bodies of revolution (BOR) of NACA sections. The HDCs of the glider fuselages are numerically estimated at a low-speed regime (10⁵ Reynolds Number) using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The methodology is validated using published literature, and the results of CFD are discussed for possible application in the estimation of glider turning motion.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.382-389
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• 2017

We are developing a prototype underwater glider for subsea payload delivery. The idea is to use a glider to deliver payloads for subsea installations. In this type of application, the hydrodynamic forces and dynamic stability of the glider is of particular importance, as it has implications on the glider's endurance and operation. In this work, the effect of two different wing forms, rectangular and tapered, on the hydrodynamic characteristics and dynamic stability of the glider were investigated, to determine the optimal wing form. To determine the hydrodynamic characteristics, tow tank resistance tests were carried out using a model fitted alternately with a rectangular wing and tapered wing. Steady-state CFD analysis was conducted using the hydrodynamic coefficients obtained from the tests, to obtain the lift, drag and hydrodynamic derivatives at different angular velocities. The results show that the rectangular wing provides larger lift forces but with a reduced stability envelope. Conversely, the tapered wing exhibits lower lift force but improved dynamic stability.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.537-543
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• 2017

Underwater glider is the long-term operating underwater robot that was developed with a purpose of continuous oceanographic observations and explorations. Torpedo-type underwater glider is not efficient from an aspect of maneuverability, because it uses a single buoyancy engine and motion controller for obtaining propulsive forces and moments. This paper introduces a ray-type underwater glider(RUG) with dual buoyancy engine, which improves the control performance of buoyancy and motion compared with torpedo-type underwater glider. Carrying out Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis as static pitch drift test, the performance of fluid resistance for gliding motion was identified. Based on the calculated hydrodynamic coefficients, the dynamic simulation compared and analyzed the motion performance of torpedo-type and ray-type while controlling same volume of buoyancy engine. Small-sized model of RUG was developed to perform fundamental performance tests.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.892-901
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• 2020

We used a numerical method to estimate the hydrodynamic maneuvering derivatives for the heave-pitch coupling motion of an underwater glider. It is very important to assess the hydrodynamic maneuvering characteristics of a specific hull form of an underwater glider in the initial design stages. Although model tests are the best way to obtain the derivatives, numerical methods such as the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) method are used to save time and cost. The RANS method is widely used to estimate the maneuvering performance of surface-piercing marine vehicles, such as tankers and container ships. However, it is rarely applied to evaluate the maneuvering performance of underwater vehicles such as gliders. This paper presents numerical studies for typical experiments such as static drift and Planar Motion Mechanism (PMM) to estimate the hydrodynamic maneuvering derivatives for a Ray-type Underwater Glider (RUG). A validation study was first performed on a manta-type Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV), and the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) results were compared with a model test that was conducted at the Circular Water Channel (CWC) in Korea Maritime and Ocean University. Two different RANS solvers were used (Star-CCM+ and OpenFOAM), and the results were compared. The RUG's derivatives with both static drift and dynamic PMM (pure heave and pure pitch) are presented.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.441-450
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• 2022

The introduction of autonomous underwater gliders (AUGs) specifically addresses the reduction of operational costs that were previously prohibited with conventional autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) using a "scaling-down" design philosophy by utilizing the characteristics of autonomous drifters to far extend operation duration and coverage. Long-duration, wide-area missions raise the cost and complexity of in-water testing for novel approaches to autonomous mission planning. As a result, a simulator that supports the rapid design, development, and testing of autonomy solutions across a wide range using software-in-the-loop simulation at faster-than-real-time speeds becomes critical. This paper describes a faster-than-real-time AUG simulator that can support high-resolution bathymetry for a wide variety of ocean environments, including ocean currents, various sensors, and vehicle dynamics. On top of the de facto standard ROS-Gazebo framework and open-sourced underwater vehicle simulation packages, features specific to AUGs for ocean mapping are developed. For vehicle dynamics, the next-generation hybrid autonomous underwater gliders (Hybrid-AUGs) operate with both the buoyancy engine and the thrusters to improve navigation for bathymetry mappings, e.g., line trajectory, are is implemented since because it can also describe conventional AUGs without the thrusters. The simulation results are validated with experiments while operating at 120 times faster than the real-time.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.466-473
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• 2014

Underwater gliders do not have any external propulsion systems that can generate and control their motion. Generally, underwater gliders would obtain a propulsive force through the lift force generated on the body by a fluid. Underwater gliders should be equipped with mechanisms that can induce heave and pitch motions. In this study, an inner movable and rotatable mass mechanism was proposed to generate the pitch and roll motions of an underwater glider. In addition, a buoyancy control unit was presented to adjust the displacement of the underwater glider. The buoyancy control unit could generate the heave motion of the underwater glider. In order to analyze the underwater dynamic behavior of this system, nonlinear 6-DOF dynamic equations that included mathematical models of the inner movable mass and buoyancy control unit were derived. Only kinematic characteristics such as the location of the inner movable mass and the piston position of the buoyancy control unit were considered because the velocities of these systems are very slow. The effectiveness of the proposed dynamic modeling was verified through sawtooth and spiraling motion simulations.