Towards the development of a bio-inspired shark-shaped unmanned underwater vehicle

Design, fabrication and deployment of Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) are gaining huge significance with the advent of the latest technologies. Nature, the master engineer has created some inspirational organisms with high efficiency of locomotion and here an attempt has been made to develop a UUV, which mimics the thunniform locomotion of sharks based on a PID control facilitating a corrective action to its course through recursive training. This work brings in the use of hydrodynamic principles blended with modern electronics and advanced controls providing a frame-work of bio-inspired propulsion. The UUV is fabricated using 3D printing techniques and uses commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components. The present version of the UUV has a velocity of about 0.4 m/s. The developed vehicle is tested for its propulsive efficiency and is found to be about 25% more efficient than conventional propellers operating at the same speed.