Flying wing underwater glider: Design, analysis, and performance prediction

Abstract

Underwater glider is the new class of autonomous underwater vehicle which has been used for ocean observation and wide range of marine environment monitoring. The legacy gliders have low lift-drag ratio (L/D) and limited gliding efficiency because the hull generates barely lift force. To solve the problem of low lift-drag ratio, we developed an underwater glider (HFWUG) based on the flying wing design. Firstly, we have a preliminary discussion on the configuration optimization of the HFWUG, optimizing shape design from four schemes by using Computational fluid dynamics code. Then, the steady-state glide equation is presented and solved numerically for given net-buoyancy and pitch angle in various navigation states. Spider plot of gliding performance prediction is provided which contains all the information defining the performance of the glider. The results show that the underwater glider based on flying wing design can enhance the gliding efficiency by getting high lift-drag ratio.