Sensing flow like a fish
Abstract
We will develop flow/pressure sensors for an unmanned fishlike underwater vehicle (UUV) to give it hydrodynamic situational awareness: the ability to feel the water around it to enable it to swim efficiently, navigate around objects, follow the contours of the seabed and hold position behind a bluff body in a stream. The sensors could also provide a UUV with sensing capacity for efficient side by side swimming alongside other robot swimmers in a swarm. The project grows from our current ONR Global funded program (Contract number N629091712136): Feeling like a Fish, for which we have developed a soft and stretchy sensing skin for a fishlike UUV that enables closedloop cyber proprioceptive feedback to musclelike actuators within the body of the UUV. The project has been running in parallel with the building of a fishlike UUV under development at the Newport Naval Undersea Warfare Centre (ONR Bioinspired Propulsor project currently underway at NUWC Division Newport (PI: Dr. Simon Freeman)); we will give the NUWC robot proprioceptive sensing capabilities. To build on this we will provide hydrodynamic situational awareness. For this we have two concept flow sensors under development: capacitive and fringe field; either will serve as a bionic neuromast, like the natural sensor on the skin of a fish and within its lateral line system. Multiple sensors will be arrayed along the UUV skin to enable the collection of information from the wake of other upstream objects, and from moving bodies such as the propellers or fins of other UUVs. Such improved hydrodynamic sensing will eventually enable robotic swarming (re: ONR BAA Announcement #N0001420SB001, 2020 re: Focus area for MCWL experimentation 18f Technologies that enable swarming of unmanned systems.) In our first year we will optimise and evaluate both sensor technologies using finite elements, computational fluid dynamics and prototype testing. One goal will be to demonstrate rheotaxis, the ability for a robotbody to point itself into the direction of flow. For this we will use our own animatronics robot Robowahoo. The subsequent 2 years will see the building of a test system for evaluation of the response of the selected sensor in an array to hydrodynamic cues including the wake behind bluff bodies and nearby swimmers. In its final year our work will merge with the ONR Bioinspired Propulsor project. Our project will cost approximately $546k over three years and will involve 2 academics, an engineer and a PhD student.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- May 05, 2021
- Source ID
- N000142112413
Entities
People
- Iain A Anderson
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Auckland