This paper describes a study on the dynamic modeling and the motion simulation of an unmanned ocean platform to overcome the limitations of existing unmanned ocean platforms for ocean exploration. The proposed unmanned ocean vehicle combines an unmanned surface vehicle and unmanned underwater vehicle with an underwater cable. This platform is connected by underwater cable, and the forces generated in each platform can influence each other’s dynamic motion. Therefore, before developing and operating an unmanned ocean platform, it is necessary to derive a dynamic equation and analyze dynamic behavior using it. In this paper, Newton’s second law and lumped-mass method are used to derive the equations of motion of unmanned surface vehicle, unmanned underwater vehicle, and underwater cable. As the underwater cable among the components of the unmanned ocean platform is expected to affect the motion of unmanned surface vehicle and unmanned underwater vehicle, the similarity of modeling is described by comparing with the cable modeling results and the experimental data. Finally, we constructed a dynamic simulator using Matlab and Simulink, and analyzed the dynamic behavior of the unmanned ocean platform through open-loop simulation.

This paper presents the system, controller, and field test results of an unmanned marine vehicle (UMV) developed to acquire real-time ocean exploration information. The system consists of an unmanned surface vehicle (USV), an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV), and an underwater cable. The developed platform is a research platform for ocean exploration and was proposed to compensate for the shortcomings of the existing USV, UUV, and towing system. This paper describes the proposed UMV, including the design considerations such as electronics architecture, data management, sensors, and actuators and explains the path control algorithm and controller used to follow the specified path for ocean exploration. In order to confirm the performance of the developed platform and control algorithm, a way-point tracking experiment was performed, and the results are shown.