Frame design and optimization of AI- enabled underwater robot

• Main Author: Nurhamizan Kamsani
• Other Authors: Hu Guoqiang
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/78147
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

As technology advances, robots have been a part of our daily lives, used in menial task such as vacuuming floors to tasks that normal humans would find hard to complete such as the survey of the seabed. In recent years, underwater robots have been gaining popularity especially when the work requires the user to be beneath the water surface for a long period of time or beneath a pressure that no normal human can survive. Hence, using an underwater robot to complete the task have been a popular substitute. For an underwater robot to complete its given task effectively, rapidity and manoeuvrability are considered one of the main factors the robot should have. Studies have concluded that these factors narrow the amount of resistance that the robot experience, which can be further narrowed to the shape of the robot. Hence, by implementing a suitable frame and hull profile, the robot can experience lesser resistance and possibly improve its capability in completing a given task. With the use of SketchUp and AutoCAD, the design of the hull and frame can be obtained. The hydrodynamic characteristic of the design can then be obtained through simulations, but to do so, the suitable turbulence model must be used. By comparing simulated turbulence model and theoretical turbulence calculation, the suitable turbulence model can be obtained and in hand the resistance that the robot experience. Simulations are done using ANSYS Fluent and CFD, with this, the optimal shape of the robot can be obtained.