Hydro-Piezoelectricity: A Renewable Energy Source for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles
Abstract
LONG-TERM GOALS. There is an ever-growing military, scientific and commercial need to establish Autonomous Distributed Systems (ADS) for studying and measuring oceanographic, atmospheric and other data in the littoral regions of the world. The long-term goal of this program is to develop an electrical power supply for these applications, that is reliable and easy to operate, has a long maintenance-free operating life, and is as low cost as possible. An ideal system for meeting these goals is to have a power generation system that directly converts the mechanical energy in waves and currents into electricity. This electrical energy, scavenged from the ocean environment, can then be used to directly power or to recharge the batteries of the components in the ADS. The successful completion of the program will provide remote electric power generating equipment for water based military and civilian applications having capacities of a few watts to hundreds of kW. Based on a unique Wave Energy Converter (WEC) buoy and intelligent power take-off algorithms, the generators require no fuel and produce no emissions. Battery recharging stations for autonomous underwater vehicles and undersea sensor networks will have their mission duration capability extended for years. Long lived oceanographic data collection systems will be possible for weather prediction and environmental monitoring. In addition, there will be significant dual use in the commercial sector for power generation in remote locations where the wave climates are favorable and power generated by conventional means(imported diesel fuel) is extremely expensive.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 1999
- Accession Number
- ADA636782
Entities
People
- George W. Taylor