SPECTRAL ENERGIES LLC — Department of Defense STTR Phase I: OSD21C-007

Description

Naval research has long motivated the development of experimental and computational efforts to understand the influence of unsteady hydrodynamics on biologically inspired underwater vehicles. For such motivation, we seek to expand the performance envelopes of uncrewed systems (US) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV). While bound by the same physical laws that govern engineered systems, swimming creatures exhibit astonishing capabilities for efficiency, speed, agility, stealth, and maneuverability. In swimming, fish and mammals change their shape (gait morphology) to generate the dynamic fluid forces needed for propulsion and control. Research proves that certain body periodic motions can interact with body-induced vortices and wake vortices to maximize propulsive force. Inspired by the variety of natural locomotion modes available, we propose to incorporate years of foundational research in unsteady hydrodynamic principles generated by various types of fish-like gaits to inform the design and development of our lightweight, long-range, deep-sea, and highly-efficient underwater vehicle, “MOZA-UUV”, inspired by the Mosasaurus, an ancient swimming reptile who used multiple pairs of main propulsors and body undulation to achieve supreme swimming capability.