Lightweight Water Drone Surf Navigation and Vertical Diving
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Solution Overview
Problem
There is a need for a beach-deployable, surf-survivable water drone that can access the ocean within the first few hundred meters of the shoreline, as large unmanned vehicles are often too large and expensive for challenging near-shore environments with crashing surf and shallow waters.
Innovation Solution
A lightweight, electric-powered, propeller-driven water drone capable of operating remotely, with a propulsion system that allows it to assume different steady-state positions for navigation through surf zones and diving into the seafloor, equipped with a communications system and sensors for environmental monitoring.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If large unmanned vehicles are used for aquatic access, then they can provide comprehensive sensing capabilities, but their size and expense preclude their use in challenging near-shore environments
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the vehicle into distinct functional modules: a hull providing buoyancy, a propulsion system with water jets, a sensor suite, and a control system. This modular segmentation allows the vehicle to be lightweight yet capable, resolving the contradiction between size and reliability by optimizing each component for near-shore conditions
2Adaptability or versatility
If the vehicle assumes a steep elevation angle for diving, then it can access deep water areas, but control precision becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs dynamic control of the propulsion system to adjust the vehicle's elevation angle in real-time. The water jet propulsion system can vary thrust magnitude and direction, allowing the vehicle to transition smoothly between horizontal navigation and vertical diving modes, maintaining control precision across the full range of motion
Solution Approach 2:
The vehicle incorporates sensors that monitor its position, orientation, and depth, feeding this information back to the control system. This feedback mechanism enables automatic adjustment of propulsion thrust to maintain desired elevation angles, resolving the control precision issue when operating at steep diving angles
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables safe and reliable access to near-shore ocean areas by navigating through surf zones and diving vertically, providing environmental data while maintaining communication with the operator through a telemetry system.
Implementation Method 1
a propulsion system including two actuators, each actuator including a propeller positioned at the rear end of the hull and configured to supply thrust along a thrust vector
Implementation Method 2
The vehicle may be operated by remote control from the shore and guided with simple autopilot commands. It may be capable of travelling horizontally through the surf zone and diving vertically through the water column to the seafloor.
Data Source
AI summary
A water drone capable of navigating on the surface, or below the surface, of a body of water. In some embodiments such a vehicle is light-weight, electric-powered, and propeller-driven, and may be operated by remote control from the shore and guided with simple autopilot commands. The vehicle may have two actuators at the rear of the vehicle, each including a motor and a propeller, and each capable of producing forward or reverse thrust. The vehicle may be capable of travelling horizontally through the surf zone and diving vertically through the water column to the seafloor. The vehicle may monitor its own location and depth and may measure environmental conditions such as water temperature; such measurements may be communicated back to the operator using a telemetry system.