Design, modeling and numerical analysis of a WEC-Glider (WEG)

Yongkuang Zhang, Yu Zhou, Weixing Chen, Weidong Zhang and Feng Gao

Renewable Energy, 2022, vol. 188, issue C, 911-921

Abstract: Wave Glider is an unmanned autonomous vehicle fully powered by renewable energy, which converts wave energy into thrust and converts solar energy into power for electronic devices. It is extensively applied in large-scale, long-term ocean observation. However, photovoltaic power generation capacity of Wave Glider is relatively weak (continuous power available to payloads: 10 Watts), which limits the sensing and communication ability of Wave Glider. This paper presents a Wave Glider with a WEC called WEC-Glider scheme, i.e., the fluctuating tension of umbilical drives the slider to do a reciprocating movement, and then the slider drives the ball screw to spin the generator. The WEC-Glider is capable of converting wave energy into electricity as well as propulsion. Based on Fossen's equation, the 6-DOF dynamic models are established. A numerical model is established via Matlab/Simulink, to simulate the dynamic response with different parameters. The numerical results show that the proposed WEC-Glider can achieve 34 Watts power generation under the given regular waves. In the future, the WEC-glider could be used in the oceanographic observation to cope with insufficient photovoltaic power generation of the traditional Wave Glider, especially on continuous cloudy days or in high latitude region.

Keywords: WEC-Glider; Wave energy converter; Wave glider; Dynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:188:y:2022:i:c:p:911-921

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2022.02.102

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