Motion Analysis of Wave Glider Based on Multibody Dynamic Theory

A wave glider has been developed and field tested. Differ from the conventional Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) or Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUVs), the wave glider consists of the surface ship, the connecting cable and the underwater gliding body. It can roughly be regarded as an interrelated multibody system which. Therefore, the traditional dynamic methods and analyzing process of the USVs and the UUVs are inapplicable to the wave glider. In this paper, a dynamic model of wave glider is derived using multibody dynamic theory. The mathematic models of the surface ship, the underwater gliding body and the connection cable are respectively established based on the mechanical relationship. Motion analysis according to the dynamic model is also conducted by using numerical simulation software ADAMS and MATLAB. The navigation motions on water surface are simulated. These simulations are important to the performance analysis and parameter optimization for wave glider. The simulation results show a good agreement with sea trials.