Progress 09/01/21 to 12/19/22
Outputs
Target Audience:As the focus of this project period is prototyping and validating the proposed wave energy power autonomous system for offshore aquaculture applications, the target audiences for this period include developers, researchers, investors, and potential product users in the offshore aquaculture, marine automotive robotic, and ocean energy field. More specifically, developers and researchers who are working on small-size autonomous underwater vehicles, unmanned surface vehicles, self-powered offshore devices, and ocean energy harvesting devices will be the target audiences. Meanwhile, potential end users and stakeholders such as offshore fish farm operators, offshore aquaculture cleaning companies, offshore autonomous vehicle users, and sustainable aquaculture investors will also be the target audiences. Changes/Problems:The PI Lei Zuo moved to the University of Michigan, joining in the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department on Aug 28th. We are requesting to transfer the project and complete it at U Mich. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project has provided numerals training opportunities for both graduate students and undergraduate students. In the last period, there were two graduate students working on this project from the Virginia Tech side. While working on this project, the graduate students were developing their research skills, design skills, prototyping skills, simulation skill, data analysis skills, mentoring skills, etc. They will publish papers and participate in future conferences based on the novel research results found in this research topic. Meanwhile, this project was listed as a senior design project in Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering department at Virginia Tech in the past period. More than 10 undergraduate students participated and contributed to the prototypes' design and fabrication. The senior design project is a required project for senior engineering students who are graduating. The project lasts for two semesters and aimed to develop students' technical and professional skills. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The team reached out to four high schools in the Blacksburg area and showcased a small education expo. This expo was intended to expose upper-class high school students to some of the exciting projects that were ongoing at VT. Through this medium, we could bring awareness about the work being done in the offshore aquaculture and ocean energy field and its importance. The team also reached out to companies that working on offshore aquaculture farms and facilities discussing their needs and our proposed idea. Many companies showed interest and would like to further get to know the system when it is completed. We are planning to continue this end-user and market feedback-based interview in our future development. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, the main goal for the ASV development is to optimize its configuration for ocean wave energy harvesting bytuning the system's best performance range close to the real ocean wave conditions. The ultimate goal is to makethe ASV an energy-efficient and self-sufficient system. Both optimized small-scale and full-scale models will be tested to validate the performance. The Power take-off system, catamaran buoy shape, and propulsion system will be the main focus.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
This proposed system is aimed to support the domestic offshore aquaculture farms in The United States with its novel autonomous and self-powered technology, improve the unmanned capability of offshore aquaculture facilities, and help create a sustainable aquaculture environment. More specifically, the system will address two of the most labor-intensive and time-consuming tasks for offshore fish farm maintenance, fish pen fencing cleaning, and dead fish removal. The system is composed of an autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) and an autonomous remotely operated vehicle (AROV). The system will be powered by ocean waves by the energy harvester in the ASV, and the ASV has the ability to navigate itself automatically from one location to another. Meanwhile, the AROV is connected with ASV underwater, which can be deployed and conduct tasks much longer and more frequently. Eventually, this system is expected to conduct routine work in offshore fish farms and reduce the cost and risk for divers and operators. This solution provides a low-risk, cost-efficient way for offshore fish farm operators and workers can reduce their underwater maintenance time and cost. Furthermore, the autonomous system also makes long-term continuous monitoring and maintenance easy, which can further improve the offshore fish farm's operation quality. In the past year, a full-scale and a small-scale ASV prototypes were designed, fabricated, and tested from the Virginia Tech side. The full-scale model can be fit into a cube with a side length of 3m. It includes a catamaran shape buoy, heave plate, body structure, ocean wave energy power-take-off (PTO) system, thrusting system, radio remote control system, batteries, and harvested power measuring system. This full scaled system was tested in both indoor pool environments and outdoor lake environments. During the test, the remote control function, mobility, and wave energy harvesting ability were validated successfully. The remote radio control can send moving commands to the system and receive data packages such as precise location coordinates and real-time video feed from the boat in an open lake environment. Due to the geographical limitation, the tested maximum range for on-sight remote control is one mile. According to the radio communication component's specification, the maximum on-sight communication range is around 40 miles. Under the radio remote control, the ASV can reach a constant maximum speed of 3 Knots, perform spin turn, brake, and reverse easily. For the wave energy harvesting ability, the team tested the full-scale prototype on Claytor Lake near Virginia Tech. Although the waves on the lake were not ideal for testing power generation as the device has been designed to operate in an ocean swell, the team was able to create small singular waves by driving a motorboat at speed past the system to test the power output (approximately 0.2m wave height). The peak voltage generated was around 3.5 volts which, translates to a power output based on the tested electric load is approximately 50 watts. Due to some loss in the electrical components, the team estimates the peak power can reach 80-90 watts after improvements. Considering the wave generated by the motorboat is much smaller than the real swell condition in the ocean, the system has the potential to produce more than 300 watts of power in real ocean environments. To further study and optimize the system after the fundamental validation of the full-scale model, a 1 to 5-scaled small prototype was designed, optimized, fabricated, and tested. This scaled model was designed to further study the PTO system and hydrodynamics performance of the ASV under waves. This prototype is consisting of a scaled and simplified catamaran shape buoy, heave plate, connection structure, and PTO system. The dimension and configuration of the system were improved and optimized using hydrodynamic analysis software ANSYS AQWA and Wave Energy Converter SIMulator (WECSim) which were developed in Matlab/SIMULINK by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia). The configuration was optimized based on the energy harvesting performance under dominant wave conditions in the real ocean. Then the scaled prototype with an optimized design was fabricated and tested in the wave tank at the Stevens Institute of Technologyunder groups of wave conditions and wave heights.The average power of the improved 1 to 5 scaled model at its best performance wave conditionis around 1 watt under 0.1m wave height. After scaling up to full scale using the Froude scaling law, the average power is around 280 watts under a 0.5m wave height.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:As the focus of this project period is prototyping and validating the proposed wave energy power autonomous system for offshore aquaculture applications, the target audiences for this period include developers, researchers, investors, and potential product users in the offshore aquaculture, marine automotive robotic, and ocean energy field. More specifically, developers and researchers who are working on small-size autonomous underwater vehicles, unmanned surface vehicles, self-powered offshore devices, and ocean energy harvesting devices will be the target audiences. Meanwhile, potential end users and stakeholders such as offshore fish farm operators, offshore aquaculture cleaning companies, offshore autonomous vehicle users, and sustainable aquaculture investors will also be the target audiences. Changes/Problems:The PI Lei Zuo moved to the University of Michigan, joining in the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department onAug 28th. We are requesting to transfer the project and complete it at U Mich. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project has provided numerals training opportunities for both graduate students and undergraduate students. In the last period, there were two graduate students working on this project from the Virginia Tech side. While working on this project, the graduate students were developing their research skills, design skills, prototyping skills, simulation skill, data analysis skills, mentoring skills, etc. They will publish papers and participate in future conferences based on the novel research results found in this research topic. Meanwhile, this project was listed as a senior design project in Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering department at Virginia Tech in the past period. More than 10 undergraduate students participated and contributed to the prototypes' design and fabrication. The senior design project is a required project for senior engineering students who are graduating. The project lasts for two semesters and aimed to develop students' technical and professional skills. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The team reached out to four high schools in the Blacksburg area and showcased a small education expo. This expo was intended to expose upper-class high school students to some of the exciting projects that were ongoing at VT. Through this medium, we could bring awareness about the work being done in the offshore aquaculture and ocean energy field and its importance. The team also reached out to companies that working on offshore aquaculture farms and facilities discussing their needs and our proposed idea. Many companies showed interest and would like to further get to know the system when it is completed. We are planning to continue this end-user and marketfeedback-based interview in our future development. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, the main goal for the ASV development is to optimize its configuration for ocean wave energy harvesting and mobility, which makes the ASV an energy-efficient and self-sufficient system. Both optimized small-scale and full-scale models will be tested to validate the performance. The Power take-off system, catamaran buoyshape, and propulsion system will be the main focus.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
This proposed system is aimed to support the domestic offshore aquaculture farms in The United States with its novel autonomous and self-powered technology, improve the unmanned capability of offshore aquaculture facilities, and help create a sustainable aquaculture environment. More specifically, the system will address two of the most labor-intensive and time-consuming tasks for offshore fish farm maintenance, fish pen fencing cleaning, and dead fish removal. The system is composed of an autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) and an autonomous remotely operated vehicle (AROV). The system will be powered by ocean waves by the energy harvester in the ASV, and the ASV has the ability to navigate itself automatically from one location to another. Meanwhile, the AROV is connected with ASV underwater, which can be deployed and conduct tasks much longer and more frequently. Eventually, this system is expected to conduct routine work in offshore fish farms and reduce the cost and risk for divers and operators. This solution provides a low-risk, cost-efficient way for offshore fish farm operators and workers can reduce their underwater maintenance time and cost. Furthermore, the autonomous system also makes long-term continuous monitoring and maintenance easy, which can further improve the offshore fish farm's operation quality. In the past year, a full-scale and asmall-scale ASV prototypes were designed, fabricated, and tested from the Virginia Tech side. The full-scalemodel can be fit into a cube with a side length of 3m. It includes a catamaran shape buoy, heave plate, body structure, ocean wave energy power-take-off (PTO) system, thrusting system, radio remote control system, batteries, and harvested power measuring system. This full scaled system was tested in both indoor pool environments and outdoor lake environments. During the test, the remote control function, mobility, and wave energy harvesting ability were validated successfully. The remote radio control can send moving commands to the system and receive data packages such as precise location coordinates and real-time video feed from the boat in an open lake environment. Due to the geographical limitation, the tested maximum range for on-sight remote control is one mile. According to the radio communication component's specification, the maximum on-sight communication range is around 40 miles. Under the radio remote control, the ASV can reach a constant maximum speed of 3 Knots, perform spin turn, brake, and reverse easily. For the wave energy harvesting ability, the team tested the full-scale prototype on Claytor Lake near Virginia Tech. Although the waves on the lake were not ideal for testing power generation as the device has been designed to operate in an ocean swell, the team was able to create small singular waves by driving a motorboat at speed past the system to test the power output (approximately 0.2m wave height). The peak voltage generated was around 3.5 volts which, translates to a power output based on the tested electric load is approximately 50 watts. Due to some loss in the electrical components, the team estimates the peak power can reach 80-90 watts after improvements. Considering the wave generated by the motorboat is much smaller than the real swell condition in the ocean, the system has the potential to produce more than 300 watts of power in real ocean environments. To further study and optimize the system after the fundamental validation of the full-scale model, a 1 to 5-scaled small prototype was designed, optimized, fabricated, and tested. This scaled model was designed to further study the PTO system and hydrodynamics performance of the ASV under waves. This prototype is consisting of a scaled and simplified catamaran shape buoy, heave plate, connection structure, and PTO system. The dimension and configuration of the system were improved and optimized using hydrodynamic analysis software ANSYS AQWA and Wave Energy Converter SIMulator (WEC-Sim) which were developed in Matlab/SIMULINK by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia). The configuration was optimized based on the energy harvesting performance under dominant wave conditions in the real ocean. Then the optimized scaled prototype design was fabricated and tested in the wave tank at Stevens Institute of Technology. The prototype was tested under groups of wave conditions and wave heights, and based on the preliminary data processing, the peak power of the 1 to 5 scaled model is around 1 watt under 0.06m wave height. After scaling up to full scale using the Froude scaling law, the peak power is around 280 watts under a 0.3m wave height.
Publications
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