Design and simulation analysis of flying trimaran USV

The coverage area and cruising speed are important design aspects of an unmanned surface vehicle (USV). Some conventional USVs have generally a constraint on maximum speed. This fact motivates the development of approaches for effective hull design in some earlier USVs developed at the Center for Unmanned System Studies-Institut Teknologi Bandung. The design approach with the new propulsion system and control surface is featured in the present USV. This paper presents the design and operation analysis of flying catamaran USV. The design was focused on the propulsion and distribution of hydrodynamic and aerodynamic loads on the vehicle wherein computational fluid dynamics method was used as the main analysis tool.