Design of Supplementary Thrusting Unit for a Miniature Autonomous Submarine

Abstract

The focus of this work is to design and construct a version of the secondary propulsion units used on US Navy submarines for the Virginia Tech 690 autonomous underwater vehicle. These units were used to demonstrate a control system developed in a separate study which allowed the vehicle to autonomously perform advance maneuvers such as course-keeping, mooring and obstacle avoidance. The study of the miniaturized thrusters prompted an in-depth look into two thruster designs. The first was a retractable rimdriven propeller design which was found to be too power inefficient for implementation. The final design was an azimuthing ducted propeller capable of vectoring thrust 360 degrees. Two body sections containing an implementation of the ducted propeller design were constructed and mounted to the 690 vehicle. Tests were successfully conducted in a pool.