CFD simulations and real world measurements of drag of biologically inspired underwater robot

Abstract

This paper discusses the differences between physical measurements of drag of underwater robot and computer simulation of drag of biomimetically inspired underwater robot. The hydrodynamic properties are modeled with methods of computational fluid dynamics. In particular, we simulate an elliptical cylinder and the biomimetic robot and we compare simulation data with data gathered in real physical measurement of the robot. Our research is aiming to create a biomimetic underwater robot and therefore we are interested in minimizing the drag created by the robot. The results of the computational fluid dynamics simulations show that the ideal body of the robot has a low drag but its current implementation can be improved a lot. It also gives us further guidelines for improving the design of our biomimetic underwater robot.