Research Progress in Underwater Gliders

Underwater gliders,as a new kind of underwater vehicle,can be used as underwater monitoring platform for long-range,long-time and large-scale ocean environment monitoring.Firstly,this paper describes the survey of the development status of underwater gliders at home and abroad,and analyses its potential application fields.Secondly,an underwater glider system,being developed by Shenyang Institute of Automation,Chinese Academy of Sciences,is presented in particular.The underwater glider system design includes system general design,body shell optimal design,actuator design and control system design.Two types of underwater gliders' locomotion,constant gliding motion and space helix turning motion,are studied,and its motion performances are analyzed at the same time.