Hydrodynamic Performance Enhancement of Unmanned Underwater Gliders with Soft Robotic Morphing Wings for Agility Improvement

This work aims to assess the hydrodynamic efficiency of Underwater Unmanned Vehicles (UUVs) equipped with soft morphing wings in comparison with conventional rigid ones. Unlike rigid wings, deformable counterparts are capable of altering their aerodynamic properties on demand. Any enhancement in a UUV's hydrodynamic efficiency extends its operational range, which may be a determining factor for mission feasibility. Structural and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations have been conducted for both a soft morphing wing and a UUV incorporating it. The results are validated against experimental data available in the literature. The simulated soft wing reproduces the experimental deformation with an average error of 0.752 mm, corresponding to 0.327% of its chord length, and the lift-to-drag ratio measured in water tunnel experiments with an average error of 15.7%. Finally, the overall efficiency of a UUV employing soft wings is found to be 9.75% higher than that of an equivalent UUV with traditional rigid wings. These findings further confirm the potential of soft robotics to enhance the performance of underwater vehicles, particularly in applications where pressure agnosticity is required.