Cascading Unmanned Undersea Vehicles

The Phase I effort will develop and evaluate a candidate design for the 21" host vehicle launch and recovery system and the micro-UUVs. The evaluation will include: (a) an assessment of the system's ability to autonomously launch the micro-UUV at a rate of 1 every 4 minutes; (b) the anticipated low speed hydrodynamic performance of the two vehicles operating during the recovery phase, including a plan for the detailed numerical analysis to be conducted in Phase II; (c) a preliminary design of the sensors, communications methods, vehicle guidance and control algorithms required to safely rendezvous and dock the micro-UUV; and (d) a preliminary design for the mechanical and electrical connectors to affect a reliable docking, data exchange between the vehicles and recharging of the micro-UUV. An end-to-end system engineering assessment will resolve design and performance tradeoffs among various functions. The Phase I results will establish the optimum design for further simulation based design efforts in Phase II. In addition, the Phase I assessment will identify moderate and high risk components that should be prototyped and tested in the second year of the Phase II effort.