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| Virginia Tech High-Speed AUV |
| Overview
The Virginia Tech High-Speed AUV was developed to support design and demonstration of a very small, very high-speed AUV. The project went from concept to first successful open-water trial in 10 months. Principal characteristics of the AUV are
- Max speed >15 knots
- 3" diameter, ~3' long
- Weight up to 50% greater than displacement
- Active roll control
When not executing a high-speed manuever, the AUV transitions into nose-down hover.
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Movies
- Launch and flight of a neutrally ballasted vehicle, (4.2 MB, WMV format)
- Hover for heavy vehicle including roll control, (2.5 MB, WMV format)
- Animation from real flight data of launch and flight of heavy vehicle, along with transition into hover, (6.8 MB, WMV format)
- Notes on animation: The AUV starts at rest and is commanded to 3m depth. The AUV finishes the run and transitions quickly into hover. During hover, the AUV bounces along underneath the surface of the water so that it can be recovered (otherwise it sinks like missile-shaped brick). Interaction with the surface causes oscillations during hover that do not appear when hover is performed at depth. Hover at depth is very clean. Also note that the animated AUV is not to scale. It's not 10m long with 3m long tail fins!
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Intrumentation and Electronics
- Velocity
- Depth
- Tri-axial gyro
- gyro-stablized heading, pitch, and roll
- Prop speed
- RF modem
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Software/Processor
- x86-compatible single-board computer
- Linux operatoring system
- Posix-compliant application code
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