Achieving Optimal Locomotion using Self-Generated Waves

TL;DR

This paper investigates how to optimize wave-driven propulsion for a floating body by analyzing self-generated waves, deriving thrust expressions, and solving control problems to maximize thrust and control cruising velocity.

Contribution

It introduces a new analytical and numerical framework for optimizing wave-driven propulsion using bounded power control in different velocity regimes.

Findings

Optimal conditions for maximal thrust in subcritical, critical, and supercritical regimes.

Demonstration of controlling cruising velocity through power modulation.

Derived expressions linking thrust to wave amplitude differences.

Abstract

An oscillating body floating at the water surface produces a wave-field of self-generated waves. When the oscillation induces a difference in fore-aft wave amplitude squared, these self-generated waves can be used as a mechanism to propel the body horizontally across the surface (Longuet-Higgins and Stewart 1964). The optimisation of this wave-driven propulsion (WDP) is the interest of this work. To study the conditions necessary to produce optimal thrust we will utilise a shallow water set-up where a periodically oscillating pressure source acts as the body. In this framework, an expression for the thrust is derived by relation to the aforementioned difference in fore-aft amplitude squared. The conditions on the source for maximal thrust are explored both analytically and numerically in two optimal control problems. The first case is where a bound is imposed on the norm of the control function to regularise it. Secondly, a more physically motivated case is studied where the power injected by the source is bounded. The body is permitted to have a drift velocity $U$. When scaled with the wave speed $c$, the dimensionless velocity $v=U/c$ divides the study into subcritical, critical and supercritical regimes and the optimal conditions are presented for each. The result in the bounded power case is then used to demonstrate how the modulation of power injected can slowly change the cruising velocity from rest to supercritical velocities.