A Concept for Docking a UUV With a Slowly Moving Submarine Under Waves

摘要

Docking an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) with a submerged submarine in littoral waters in high sea states requires more dexterity than either the submarine or streamlined UUV possess. The proposed solution uses an automated active dock to correct for transverse relative motion between the vehicles. Acoustic, electromagnetic, and optical sensors provide position sensing redundancy in unpredictable conditions. The concept is being evaluated by building and testing individual components to characterize their performance, errors, and limitations, and then simulating the system to establish its viability at low cost.