Study on the Application of Hybrid Power Systems in Autonomous Small Surface Vehicles

Abstract The demand for autonomous small surface vehicles continues to increase around the world, as these vehicles play a key-role in modern maritime, commercial and military applications. Compared with medium and large surface vehicles, small surface vehicles are lighter, more maneuverable, and widely used in commercial, maritime, humanitarian rescue, hydrological research and military fields, etc. In addition, the development of hybrid power systems, such as combined multiple energy forms, including wind power, solar power and batteries, vehicles could flexibly switch power sources in different operation modes for multi-missions. The application in hybrid power systems are focus on future ship development. It can not only reduce Greenhouse gas emissions, but also promote the development of green ships. The purpose of this study is to discuss optimize of hybrid power systems and improvement the endurance for the autonomous small surface vehicle. Therefore, this study applied two of solar power panels and Li-iron battery to be the hybrid power systems, equipped with an autonomous navigation system, and installed the systems on an inflatable rubber boat for dynamic test on the lake. In order to improve the endurance capacity, this study applied Taguchi orthogonal array (L27) to discuss the three control factors, such as angle of solar power panels, cruise route and endurance time, and through analysis of variation (ANOVA) and intelligence parameter methods to fine the best factor-level combination. Finally, the performance improvement confirmed and achieved the robust design in this study. It expected to make a substantial contribution to the improvement of hybrid power for autonomous small surface vehicles and application in relative fields.