A numerical study of target flow field detection by autonomous underwater vehicles

ABSTRACT

Sideline is a key component of fish sensory system, which has been found to affect many behaviours of fish, including manoeuvring obstacle avoidance, prey tracking and environmental mapping in complex fluid environment. In this paper, based on the sensing flow field mechanism of fish lateral line system, a sphere obstacle model is established by using the CFD method and FLUENT software, and the flow field around it is simulated and calculated. The experiment controls two variables: water flow velocity and sphere size. In this paper, the influence of velocity and obstacle size on pressure distribution is analysed, and the rectangular coordinate system is established with the spherical centre as the origin, and the characteristics of pressure distribution in X and Y directions are summarised. This research plays an important role in promoting the development of autonomous underwater vehicles.

KEYWORDS:

• Autonomous underwater vehicle
• flow field around
• lateral line perception
• bionic detection

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).