A Mutant Concept Drone for Underwater Surveys, Inspection, and Intervention

Unmanned vehicles, either in the aerial domain or in the underwater one share a critical aspect represented by the different requirements for a vehicle devoted to perform surveys on large areas and a vehicle devoted to close inspection and intervention on structures. On the one hand, for an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) devoted to close inspection and intervention (either Autonomous - AUV or Remotely Operated - ROV) the desired shape is a compact, “stocky,” ROV-like one, with actuators placed so as to obtain an isotropic thrust/mobility behaviour and to ensure a) hovering with good position/orientation accuracy and b) mobility in any “direction” rejecting disturbances related to current and vertical motion of the water due to waves if the vehicle is near the surface. On the other hand, for the design of an AUV devoted to perform survey on large areas of seabed (such as to perform inspection on a pipeline), the preferred shape is torpedo-like and accurate hovering capability is not a requirement: That is why commercially available AUVs usually have a single aft propeller and control surfaces to control pitch and yaw thus preventing the possibility to perform hovering. In the present paper, a novel mutant underwater concept drone is presented, featuring reconfigurable shape and actuator distribution which adapt to the task at hand. By doing so, we suggest how to avoid “mission impossible” attemps of achieving a good trade-off between the torpedo-shaped, hydrodynamic design, preferred for surveys, and the stocky, isotropic design, preferred for hovering tasks.