| Abstract | Underwater gliders are being proposed as an alternative to the resource intensive and costly shipboard methods of oceanographic data collection. One such underwater vehicle currently in operation is the SLOCUM Glider. The purpose of the present work is to devise a dynamic simulation for the SLOCUM Glider that allows the vehicle?s motion to be predicted in response to control inputs. Such a simulation could be used to test operational scenarios and to aid in vehicle design. The simulation developed here relies on a component buildup method in which the hydrodynamics of the vehicle components (hull, wings, vertical fin) are estimated and summed. The simulation was validated against available experimental data. The agreement was reasonable, though it was determined that more precise information on the real vehicle was needed before further evaluations could be made. It was found that very small displacements of the vehicle C.G. had a substantial impact on the ensuing motion, and that the vehicle exhibited very stable behavior. Lateral oscillations observed in the real vehicle motion were attributed to an unmodeled interaction between the vehicle and its control system. |
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