New Integrated Total Design of Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) Propulsion System Architecture for Higher Efficiency and Low Noise

In this proposal, a meta model-based scaling law will be used to represent each system component. A components meta model-based scaling law describes the tradeoffs between performance metrics for that component or subsystem as a function of its ratings in relation to the system. This greatly reduces the number of degrees of freedom for each component, and at the same time, retains the information on the tradeoffs between components properties relevant to system optimization such as SWaP and noise. By representing each component in this way, the system design space is reduced, which facilitates a rigorous system level multi-physics multi-objective optimization with reduced stiffness and increased accuracy. Furthermore, even though different components are modeled using different solvers, individual results can be coupled and integrated into the system level optimization. By using the meta model-based approach, the results of the multi-objective optimization are fully scalable to represent various power ratings and UUV sizes. The meta model introduces greater flexibility and allows one to integrate different component models or commercially available product properties readily into the system. This allows straightforward investigation of evolving technologies and typologies such propellers and prime movers.