The design, construction, and testing of a flexible fin propelled autonomous underwater vehicle

Many designs exist for AUVs, however most only lend themselves to cruising type operations. Few designs exist for hovering, station keeping with respect to an object, and moving in all degrees of freedom within a confined space. Propeller-driven AUVs that look similar to ROVs can be used to do this, however, they require 6 propeller units to achieve 6 degree of freedom motion. One alternative is to use oscillating flexible fins (Nektors) to propel the vehicle. Nektors are capable of imparting large forces to the vehicle very quickly thereby providing the accelerations that are needed to change direction or stop quickly. This AUV design is reliable (mechanically and electrically sound), modular, and is small enough to be easily deployed by two people. This AUV is being used for research on control algorithms, Nektor designs, and effect of hull shapes. The paper details the design, construction and some testing of a successfully implemented Nektor based AUV.