Control of a mini U-boat

Abstract

An Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, which called as the Mini U-boat had been designed and optimized. The vehicle was designed mainly for underwater inspection purpose. But, many problems occurred within the design of the vehicle and caused it can’t be putting in use. It was required to analysis and find out solutions for malfunctions of the vehicle. The ballast tank unit was at the first priority to be optimized. There were mainly two problems within the ballast tank, which were friction and water leakage. A ring had added in between tank plate and gear to reduce contact surfaces, in return of greatly reducing friction. Besides that, some minor adjustment also had been conducted, like applying grease, grind the surfaces, etc. To solve water leakage problem, underwater testing had been conducted to find out the parts which water can get in. After figure out those parts which lead to water leakage, appropriate improvement process had been taken to fix the problems. The later part of the project involved the improvement of the main body of the vehicle. Once again, water leakage did a tremendous damage to the whole system and which parts that led to this failure had to be traced. The challenge was larger because one of the parts where water can get in is the propeller shaft. Dynamic parts are really hard to be sealed. Underwater testing of the Mini U-boat had been conducted at the last stage of the project. An additional weight had been added on the main body to adjust the buoyancy of the whole vehicle. Submersion system of the vehicle was working well, meanwhile water resistant characteristic of the vehicle still need to be improved.