A dynamic testbed for supercavitating vehicle control

Supercavitating vehicles are capable of achieving unprecedented speeds due to the presence of a large gas cavity surrounding their bodies. The control design and validation of these vehicles is challenging because planing forces, oscillations, and instability arise when the vehicle pierces the supercavity. In this paper, we propose a methodology to test control algorithms for a supercavitating vehicle subject to planing. With a free-to-rotate scale vehicle in a high-speed water tunnel, we reproduce planing and are capable of assessing active control technologies experimentally. Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research.