The adoption and effectiveness of UUVs has grown exponentially in the last decade, however there are many technical and operational hurdles before their full potential can be realized. The navy has identified several critical areas for improvement; reduced size and weight, increased efficiency/performance/endurance, ability to operate effectively at abysmal depths, and Improved stealth. E-Circuit Motors will use it's software-designed, novel printed circuit board-based, electric motor technology to design and evaluate propulsion motors for the Navy's LDUUV platform. ECM has successfully designed and built remarkable propulsion motors for a range of smaller UUVs and expects to leverage that work to achieve similar performance improvements for the LDUUV propulsion motors that the Navy requires. During the course of the Phase I SBIR, ECM will develop the larger designs necessary for the Navys LDUUV, and narrow the options to one of the methodologies for prototyping in Phase II.
Benefit: E-Circuit Motors expects the design developed in phase I to improve the efficiency, decrease the electromagnetic and acoustic noise, reduce size and weight, and increase the maximum depth of operation over currently available LDUUV propulsion motors. Aside from the many DoD applications, ECMs technology improvements in UUV propulsion are expected to enable and accelerate the use of UUVs in the oil & gas sector and other commercial sectors.
Keywords: UUV propulsion Motor, UUV propulsion Motor,, Low noise, LDUUV, Flooded Propulsion Motor, axial flux
