A New ROV Design: Issues on Low Drag and Mechanical Symmetry

• Author(s): Gomes, Rui ; Fraga, Sérgio ; Sousa, Alexandre ; Fraga, Sérgio Loureiro ; Martins, Alfredo ; Sousa, J. Borges de ; Pereira, Fernando Lobo
• Date: 2005
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/6995
• Origin: Repositório Científico do Instituto Politécnico do Porto
• Subject(s): Remotely operated vehicles; Mechanical design; Low drag and symmetry design; Optimized thruster positioning
• Document Type: Journal article
• Language: English
• Contributor(s): Repositório Científico do Instituto Politécnico do Porto

Description

This paper reports the design of a new remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV), which has been developed at the Underwater Systems and Technology Laboratory (USTL) - University of Porto. This design is contextualized on the KOS project (Kits for underwater operations). The main issues addressed here concern directional drag minimization, symmetry, optimized thruster positioning, stability and layout of ROV components. This design is aimed at optimizing ROV performance for a set of different operational scenarios. This is achieved through modular configurations which are optimized for each different scenario.