Developing a transient model for squid inspired thrusters, and incorporation into underwater robot control design

Similar to propulsion techniques employed by squid and other cephalopod, a new type of thruster was designed which utilized pulsatile jet propulsion to generate controlling forces. The thrust production from this device was characterized in a static environment and seen to be well approximated by a simple fluid slug model. A linear transfer function model was derived to describe the transient dynamics of this thruster and a virtual vehicle simulation was developed to test the thruster with unsteady driving signals to verify this model. Due to the extremely non-linear nature of underwater vehicle environments we developed a scaling system to classify regimes of maneuvers and characterize their dynamics independently. Within the hybrid simulation environment, using a simple proportional derivative control algorithm, a thruster/controller was designed and observed to provide sufficient control over the vehicle performing large scale maneuvers. However, some additional compensation may be required for accurate small scale maneuvers which require minimal overshoot.