심해 무인수중이동체를 위한 자동 진회수 시스템의 구조 안전성 평가

Abstract

The ocean environment poses significant technical challenges for mission execution due to its extreme conditions and limited accessibility. Accordingly, the combined operation system of unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) is garnering attention as a critical technology that can simultaneously secure efficiency and stability in various missions. In particular, to ensure the autonomy and reliability of combined operations, an automated launch and recovery system (LARS) responsible for the deployment and retrieval of UUVs is essential, and structural safety must be secured to maintain stable operations under actual ocean conditions. This research presents a novel LARS design based on the Sarrus mechanism, which significantly improves deployment stability and system compactness. A systematic structural safety evaluation of the system is also performed. The structural safety is verified under actual oceanic environments and various operating conditions, and the design validity is confirmed by securing a safety factor of 3.2 or greater across all operational scenarios. Furthermore, a systematic investigation of weight reduction strategies was performed by applying topology optimization design techniques based on the established structural safety index. These contributions demonstrate the originality of this work in combining mechanical innovation and structural optimization to improve the reliability of USV-UUVs cooperative systems.