Bouyancy Engine Design and Test for ITB Hybrid AUV

Hybrid Autonomous Underwater Vehicle is the collaboration concepts between Sea Glider and Autonomous Underwater Vehicle. The specific characteristic of Sea Glider is long endurance, wide range, and limited payload or sensor to support the mission. Different from the AUV as the real surveillance underwater vehicle, they have almost the same payload and emergency system but with limited endurance and range if compared with the Sea Glider system. Dual concepts of these characteristics will be combined. The main mission for this vehicle is adopted in AUV but for submerged and surfacing mode is adopted from Sea glider concepts with their buoyancy engine. This paper describes the step-by-step method to design the buoyancy engine of this hybrid AUV. The laboratory test to validate the design and analysis will also be described.