An extended-range wave-powered autonomous underwater vehicle applied to underwater wireless sensor networks
Hai Li,
Xiaoping Wu,
Zutao Zhang,
Xing Tan,
Yajia Pan,
Chutian Dai,
Dabing Luo,
Ammar Ahmed,
Yongsheng Xu
Affiliations
Hai Li
School of Mechanical Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, P. R. China; Yibin Research Institute, Southwest Jiaotong University, Yibin 644000, P.R. China
Xiaoping Wu
School of Mechanical Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, P. R. China
Zutao Zhang
School of Mechanical Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, P. R. China; Corresponding author
Xing Tan
School of Mechanical Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, P. R. China; Yibin Research Institute, Southwest Jiaotong University, Yibin 644000, P.R. China
Yajia Pan
School of Mechanical Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, P. R. China; Corresponding author
Chutian Dai
School of Mechanical Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, P. R. China; Yibin Research Institute, Southwest Jiaotong University, Yibin 644000, P.R. China
Dabing Luo
School of Mechanical Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, P. R. China
Ammar Ahmed
School of Mechanical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, PR China
Yongsheng Xu
School of Design and Art, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, P. R. China
Summary: The autonomous underwater vehicle has widespread applications in marine resource exploration, seabed search and rescue, underwater military reconnaissance, and marine environmental monitoring. Owing to the limited battery capacity, autonomous underwater vehicles usually only operate for several hours or days at a time. This article presents an extended-range wave-powered autonomous underwater vehicle (WPAUV) for underwater wireless sensor networks. Through theoretical analysis, simulation, dry and field experiments, the power generation performance of the extended-range WPAUV was evaluated. Under different wave amplitudes and wave frequencies, the mechanical efficiency of the extended-range WPAUV ranges from 20.41% to 81.56%. The average efficiency is 45.35%. In the field experiments, under calm ocean conditions, the maximum instantaneous power can reach 67.74W with an average of 10.18W. This high performance manifests that the extended-range WPAUV can effectively scavenge wave energy and converts it into electrical energy for expanding the cruising mileage.
