Digital Twin-Driven Industrialization Development of Underwater Gliders

Underwater glider (UG) is the only marine equipment in the field of ocean observation that can realize unmanned autonomous, all-weather and wide-area continuous 3-D observation. The rapid individualized design (RID) and full lifecycle management (FLM) make two difficulties to be solved in the industrialization development of UGs since the UG system involves interdisciplinary multiphysics and there exists multisource uncertainties in complex ocean environment. With the application of new information technologies in industry, the above problems can be effectively solved by the digital twin (DT)-driven methodology. In this article, an architecture of DT-driven RID and FLM for UGs is first put forward based on our previous theoretical research and technique development. Then, the proposed architecture of DT-driven methodology is researched in detail in terms of its digital modeling, design optimization, virtual verification and practical application. Finally, Petrel developed by China is introduced, and a typical preliminary application of DT-driven methodology is presented based on petrel to verify its feasibility. The architecture proposed in this article is also appropriate for other types of autonomous underwater vehicles.