SBIR-STTR Award

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are a critical technology that is undergoing rapid adoption. Coupled with advances in modern robotics, AUVs are performing an increasing variety of essential commercial and military applications. AUVs are battery powered and operate with strict power budgets, so balancing mission duration with sensor load and data acquisition rate is critical. Extended duration missions require repeated retrieval and recharging operations, requiring the intervention of a support vessel, which adds significant cost, time and range limitations. Power is thus a key constraint for most AUVs and the addition of a self-recharging capability to an AUV would allow the unit to complete extended duration missions without the need to be recovered and would enable extended range, duration and significantly more science to be completed. OPI will work with a major US AUV manufacturer to develop a wave powered recharging capability (WPCS) that can be integrated into commercial AUVs providing a more than 5-fold increase in power over any previous wave-powered AUV charging system. This will allow AUVs to operate for significantly longer periods of time, potentially indefinitely and with greater capability. During the Phase I project, OPI will develop a robust and complete design of a WPCS for the A-Class AUV. This will involve extensive modeling of the AUV and WPCS to understand loads and power performance. This will also include physical model experimentation of the reaction structure and the construction of a full-size WPCS unit which will be extensively tested in the laboratory. Integration of a wave energy charging system into an AUV reduces the cost per mission, allows additional sensors, higher bandwidth communications and enables more complex missions. An expanded power budget will lead to greater mission flexibility and utilization of the AUV for a wider range of applications. This will facilitate more detailed ocean science, military operations and effective surveillance, by increasing the ability to collect data across wider areas, over longer durations, and with a higher fidelity.

Adoption of autonomous underwater vehicle AUV technology has recently experienced rapid growth, fueled by possibilities opened up through technology advances. AUVs are particularly useful as unmanned survey platforms, and typically have an array of onboard sensors to collect data for a variety of commercial and military applications. AUVs are autonomous and untethered systems and require a power source, typically batteries, to be carried onboard. An increase in available energy by even a small amount can be gamechanging for AUV applications with benefits including longer mission durations, higher sampling rate, more sensing capability, and improved communication capability. The problem of finite battery life can be addressed by allowing the AUV to extract energy from its surrounding environment and eliminating the need to recover the vehicle until the mission is complete. This project aims to develop a system that will recharge the AUV using the energy in ocean waves. Such a system integrated into commercial AUVs represents a potentially gamechanging opportunity. In the Phase 1 project, OPI demonstrated in the laboratory a working concept that will allow a small AUV to recharge its batteries using ocean waves. Importantly, this concept is selfcontained and requires no external infrastructure to operate, allowing the AUV complete freedom to operate. Furthermore, the proposed approach is scalable and adaptable and can potentially be applied to any AUV. In the proposed Phase II program, OPI will further develop the Wave Power Charging System WPCS concept, adding custom control electronics, firmware and improving the mechanical design for realworld use. OPI has teamed with Lockheed Martin to apply system this to one of their commercial AClass AUVs. The enhanced AUV will then be tested in operational conditions in the open ocean. The addition of a selfrecharging capability to ocean observing vehicles can make a meaningful impact on their performance by extending mission duration and improving sensing capability. In addition to improving the capabilities of the growing ocean observing space, this can help open up wave energy as a viable new renewable energy source, resulting in new highpaying manufacturing jobs.