Title: Dynamic soaring mechanisms in the ocean boundary layer

Authors: Vincent Bonnin; Emmanuel Benard; Christine A. Toomer; Jean-Marc Moschetta

Addresses: ISAE, Université de Toulouse, 10 av. Edouard Belin, BP 54032, 31055 Toulouse Cedex 4, France ' ISAE, Université de Toulouse, 10 av. Edouard Belin, BP 54032, 31055 Toulouse Cedex 4, France ' University of the West of England, Bristol, England BS16 1QY, UK ' ISAE, Université de Toulouse, 10 av. Edouard Belin, BP 54032, 31055 Toulouse Cedex 4, France

Abstract: Dynamic soaring is a flying technique which extracts energy from an environment where wind gradients form, such as the air-sea interface above oceans that sees such gradients developing through multiple and combined phenomena. Models of wind-wave interactions are analysed in terms of their influence on the induced wind field, before selecting a purely sinusoidal peak wave from the wave spectrum and developing the related wind field using stable laminar theory. Dynamic soaring trajectories are then derived by optimising a nonlinear constrained problem that models the evolution of a point mass vehicle. Characteristic phases of dynamic soaring flight are evidenced out of the overall trajectories and compared to the flat-ocean case in order to conclude on the influence of waves regarding dynamic soaring performances.

Keywords: albatross; dynamic soaring flight; optimisation; UAVs; wind gradients; idealised waves; wave soaring; ocean boundary layer; air-sea interface; modelling; wind-wave interactions; sinusoidal peak wave; stable laminar theory; soaring trajectories; point mass vehicles.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESMS.2016.075550

International Journal of Engineering Systems Modelling and Simulation, 2016 Vol.8 No.2, pp.136 - 148

Received: 30 Jun 2014
Accepted: 04 Apr 2015
Published online: 28 Mar 2016 *

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