Design and Testing of an Autonomous Mothership for Surface Vehicle Swarm Docking

Abstract

This thesis elucidates the essential parameters for the design of an autonomous surface vehicle swarm mothership and considerations for docking the two vehicles together autonomously. A theoretical analysis is presented for extending the energy capacity of the vehicles through mothership recharging, resulting in mothership design specifications. A computational analysis of mother-daughter relative motions in waves follows, validating the hullform suitability for docking. Finally, a prototype developed by the author using the proposed methodology is detailed and experimental results are presented which highlight important considerations contributing to the success of autonomous mothership docking.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 2019
Accession Number
AD1080488

Entities

People

  • Andrew Freeman

Organizations

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Autonomy
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Ground and Sea Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Autonomous Surface Vehicles
  • Autonomous Underwater Vehicles
  • Computer Vision
  • Computers
  • Construction
  • Control Systems
  • Coordinate Systems
  • Detection
  • Energy Consumption
  • Engineering
  • Engineers
  • Field Tests
  • Graphical User Interface
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Propulsion Systems
  • Relative Motion
  • User Interface

Readers

  • Astronomy/Astrophysics
  • Marine Hydrodynamics
  • Systems Analysis and Design