This project will develop a sensory system for these autonomous platforms capable of sensing coherent structures in the surrounding flow. Unlike existing flow sensing technology, which is largely acoustic based, this project will develop a flow sensory system inspired by the lateral line sensing found in fish, where changes in pressure and shear stress over the surface of the body, measured by a distributed sensor array, is used to interpret the surrounding flow. Since this technique is based on interpreting the hydrodynamic imprint on a vehicle surface, it is a passive remote sensing technique, which is both more stealthy and consumes less energy than active acoustic sensing.
Additionally, the novel sensory system can be used to provide information about hydrodynamic forces that drastically improves motion control of these vehicles. There are an abundance of complications that make autonomous operation of underwater vehicles in coastal and littoral regions difficult. Aside from a high density of both marine life and commercial vessels, these regions are cluttered with natural obstacles and contain chaotic high energy waves and fluid currents. This system will provide unprecedented sensing of the surrounding fluid environment including real-time measurement of the induced hydrodynamic forces, local fluid velocity, vortex, and wave patterns, and features in the flow indicative of nearby obstacles.