Drifting and Gliding: Design of a Multimodal Underwater Vehicle

A novel multimodal autonomous underwater vehicle has been proposed and developed as an emerging platform for long endurance and high spatiotemporal ocean observations. The proposed platform combines positive attributes of an underwater glider and the long endurance of the Argo profiling float. By using the special designed attitude control system and the ingenious general arrangement, the underwater vehicle can switch the operating mode between drifting mode and gliding mode. The multimodal underwater vehicle exploits float motion to drift with the currents making measurements and transformed to operate as an underwater glider when the scientists instruct the vehicle to cross the eddy currents, fronts, filaments or some stirring regions. In this study, the mechanical and electrical design of the prototype is introduced in detail, experiments are performed first in a test tank and then in field trials in Qian Dao Lake to investigate the performance and maneuverability of the multimodal underwater vehicle.