Development and depth control of a new solar AUV

This paper designs a solar-powered autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) with an innovative design for its recharging unit, giving it both recharging and gliding function. During the dive, the foldable charging unit is deployed and has the same gliding motion function as other solar powered underwater gliders. When the AUV reaches its working depth, the mechanism of the foldable charging unit retracts, effectively reducing the area of the charging plate. This reduction in surface area leads to decreased resistance from the charging plate during underwater movement and minimizes the impact of ocean currents. Consequently, energy consumption is reduced, and the stability of underwater operations is improved. Compared with the underwater glider, the AUV in this paper is equipped with two side thrusters to control the AUV work depth, and has good depth control performance to ensure that the AUV can reach the working depth quickly and accurately. This paper discusses the structural design of the AUV, then briefly describes the dynamics modeling, and finally uses fuzzy PID control method for depth control, and conducts simulation experiments in Simulink to verify the superiority of the control method.