Diesel engine integration into autonomous underwater vehicles

The critical enabling technologies which have been identified to fully realise the potential of AUVs are: long endurance propulsion/energy systems; geodetic and relative navigation; underwater communications; mission management and control; sensors and signal processing; and vehicle design. However, perhaps the most critical technology for almost every AUV application, and often the operational limiting factor, is the availability of adequate onboard energy/power. Given the specialist nature of the AUV market, research and development into new AUV-specific power systems is inevitably limited by resources. At the present, the relative merits and disadvantages of the competing air-independent power systems (AIPS) are fairly well known. However, the greatest need of advice is with the "total system" and its integration, i.e., how the AIPS is affected by, and affects the overall vehicle design. Hence, with the numerous design considerations of an AUVs, full knowledge and understanding of the total AIPS integration is essential, if a technically and operationally successful vehicle design is to be achieved The aim of this paper is to examine the conceptual design of an AUV with specific emphasis on the integration of an air-independent power system, thereby enabling the initial design of AUVs to be evaluated.