A novel roll mechanism to increase maneuverability of autonomous underwater vehicles in shallow water

This paper presents a novel roll mechanism and an efficient control strategy for the roll and pitch of internally actuated autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) including most underwater gliders (UGs). The proposed design and approach increases maneuverability which is essential for operating in shallow water or crowded harbors. The design is implemented on Michigan Tech's research UG ROUGHIE (Research Oriented Underwater Glider for Hands-on Investigative Engineering) and the performance is validated. The experimental results demonstrate that ROUGHIE is capable of tight turn radii down to approximately twice the vehicle length in shallow water.