Study on impact process of AUV underwater docking with a cone-shaped dock

This study investigates the impact issues associated with docking systems when autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) contact with a cone-shaped and unclosed dock, which has been proposed and realised by most AUV docking systems. The study aims to understand the impact process in AUV docking with the dock and derive a number of probable suggestions. To realise this objective, a dynamic model with impact is established in the commercial software ADAMS after identifying relevant forces especially obtaining hydrodynamic coefficients and completing impact configurations. Based on the proposed dynamic model, five interesting influence elements are discussed respectively. A pool trial was conducted, and experiment results are compared with the corresponding simulation data to validate the model. Several effective suggestions are proposed for the designs of the docking system and the docking control of the companion AUV.