Gradient-based multidisciplinary design optimization of an autonomous underwater vehicle

In this paper, multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) is introduced for the conceptual design of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). The purpose is to minimize the energy consumption with predefined sailing distance. AUV is decomposed into three disciplines and the coupling relationship is analyzed to build the optimization model. Since drag plays a major role in energy consumption, a hydrodynamic analysis framework is established for drag calculation, consisting of parametric modeling, mesh auto-generation and numerical simulation. In order to complete the optimization effectively, multidisciplinary feasible (MDF) architecture is used and gradient-based optimization algorithm is adopted. Moreover, analytic methods are incorporated into the MDF architecture via gradient to further improve the efficiency of gradient calculation. The optimization result shows that the optimized AUV is much more energy-saving than the initial design and the MDF architecture via coupled analytic methods is quite efficient.