Abstract
Underwater glider (UG) is a new type of ocean observation platform. An accurate hydrodynamic analysis is necessary for motion performance analysis and motion control purposes. This paper proposes a novel data-driven method based on a differential evolution (DE) algorithm for the UG hydrodynamic. The gliding hydrodynamic identification model is derived first from the dynamic model under stable gliding conditions. Then, based on the trial data, the DE is used to identify gliding hydrodynamic. Finally, the towing tank test (Tank) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation are carried out to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. To show the superiority of the DE-based method, the optimization (PSO) algorithm is added for comparison. The result indicates that the DE-based method has higher accuracy and faster convergence velocity in the UG hydrodynamic identification problem. When the gliding angle is set to 14.23∘, the maximum gliding efficiency is 94.00%. This hydrodynamic identification method also provides a reference for other underwater vehicles.
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•An accurate and simple gliding hydrodynamic identification model of UG is derived from the dynamic model.•A data-driven UG hydrodynamic identification method is proposed based on the differential evolution algorithm.•Experimental studies on the towing tank test and CFD simulation are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.