AUV "Flying Fish"

AUV:"Flying Fish"

Project Name:

The Development of "Flying Fish" AUV

Principal Investigator:

Prof. Yi Hong

Associate Prof. Zhang Yufang

Collaborator:

Qian Peng, Ma Shaojun, Meng Jinlong,

Fan Dixia, Meng Chen, et al.

Funding Sources:

"National Undergraduate Scientific and

Technological Innovation Project" (NUSTIP)

The "Flying Fish I" was the name of the first AUV(autonomous underwater vehicle) that our group designed and was bulit entirely by undergraduates. It was composed of one upper hull pressure vessel and the corresponding upper hull rack, with two vertical thrusters to control pitch and heave motions and two horizontal motors to drive the vehicle in the surge andyaw degrees of freedom. We built this AUV to in order to finish several underwater tasks, and our primary goal is to at last enter the AUVSI/ONR Underwater Vehicle Competition.

My First Lab Experience:

This AUV designing and building is actually the very first lab experience after I entered university. And I really learned a lot from this precious experience. during this interesting journey, I found my passion and interests into the research, and also explored the way how students performed it.

Here special thanks to three seniors, Qian Peng, Meng Jinlong, Ma Shaojun, who gave me numerous help and instructions.

Building Process:

Length: 1.1m	Width: 0.48m
Height: 0.36m	Weight: 33.4kg
Water-tight cylinder radius: 0.2m	Water-tight cylinder length: 1m
Design speed: 5kn	Endurance ability: 1h
Propeller form: MAU(80mm)	Propeller number: 2*2

The general structure of the design:

Then inside it was the core of the "Flying Fish I", the central controlling computer with the OS as Windows 98 and 4 Maxon motor control panels.

The next very important part of the "Flying Fish I" was its watertight cylinder and the frames where the 4 motors were fixed. And here was its simple watertight test:

One of the biggest difficulties we met with is the watertight problem, including the underwater motors and the Connecting plugs.

For example, we changed several different structure type around the connecting plugs in order to achieve its watertight ability and also its convenience for us to open for maintenance. At beginning, we just used a PVC rotary lid with the signal and power lines cross right through the lid, but we found that every time we tried to open the lid, because of the rotation, the lid and lines tended to break up, thus causing the failure of its watertight ability. And later, we designed and used a lock-lock box, and successfully solved the problem.