Hydrodynamic characteristic of synthetic jet steered underwater vehicle

In this paper, the hydrodynamic characteristic of a synthetic jet steered underwater vehicle is studied. The steering motion studied is the lateral motion and the yaw motion. The lateral motion is induced through the in-phase work of this two actuators and the yaw motion is realized through the out-of-phase work. The vehicle studied is REMUS AUV with synthetic jet actuator mounted inside. The hydrodynamic characteristic of the vehicle under different cruising speed is studied. The driving parameters of the SJ actuator keep invariant in different cases. When the two actuators work in phase, the average steering force is smaller than the thrust of the isolated actuator and keeps nearly invariant under different cruising speed. When the two actuators work out of phase, the average steering moment also keeps invariant with cruising speed. The mathematical model of the additional drag of the vehicle, the thrust of the actuator, the steering force as well as the steering moment is given. The velocity distribution is also given to assistant the analysis in this paper. From the analysis given it can be known the steering method based on SJ is realized through position control other than velocity control.