The unmanned aerial–underwater vehicle (UAUV) is a new type of vehicle that can fly in the air and cruise in water and is expected to cross the free water surface several times to perform continuous uninterrupted observation and sampling. To analyze the hydrodynamic and motion characteristics of the vehicle, the whole water-entry process of a multi-degree-of-freedom UAUV with various velocity and pitch angle was investigated through a Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes method. The computational domain was meshed by trimmer cells. The relative movement between the vehicle and fluid domain was simulated using moving reference frame overset mesh to delineate the interaction region around vehicle body. To reduce the computational cost, adaptive mesh refinement and adaptive time-stepping strategy were used to capture the slamming pressure accurately with reasonable computational effort. First, convergence study is considered. Simulations of the vehicle with various initial velocities and different pitch angles were performed. The variable physical properties were analyzed, and detailed results through the time-varying force and velocity were shown. Initial velocity and pitch angle are found to significantly influence hydrodynamic behavior, including the time-varying force, while thickness ratio has a great impact on added mass and pressure. The results show that higher entry velocity results in greater peak vertical force. The transverse hydrodynamic characteristics for oblique water entry of the vehicle with varies pith angle are quite different.

The positive buoyancy diving autonomous vehicle combines the features of an Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) and an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) for marine measurement and monitoring. It can also be used to study reasonable and efficient positive buoyancy diving techniques for underwater robots. In order to study the optimization of low power consumption and high efficiency cruise motion of the positive buoyancy diving vehicle, its dynamic modeling has been established. The optimal cruising speed for low energy consumption of the positive buoyancy diving vehicle is determined by numerical simulation. The Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) controller is designed to optimize the dynamic error and the actuator energy consumption of the vehicle in order to achieve the optimal fixed depth tracking control of the positive buoyancy diving vehicle. The results demonstrate that the LQR controller has better performance than PID, and the system adjustment time of the LQR controller is reduced by approximately 56% relative to PID. The motion optimization control method proposed can improve the endurance of the positive buoyancy diving vehicle, and has a certain application value.