Design of an underwater glider platform for shallow-water applications

Underwater gliders are type of autonomous underwater vehicle that glide by controlling their buoyancy and attitude using internal actuators. By changing the vehicle’s buoyancy intermittently, vertical motion can be achieved. Characteristic of glider motions include upward and downward in a saw tooth pattern, turning and gliding in a vertical spiral motion glides without using thrusters or propellers. This paper presents the development of the USM underwater glider as the first prototype for shallow water applications. The prototype development involves vehicle concept design using SolidworksTM, vehicle simulations by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and MATLAB SimulinkTM as stage of the design process. Once the prototype fabrication and system integration are completed, it will be tested for vehicle’s modeling and controller development using the system identification approach and will be compared with the proven glider’s control model.