Antenna Systems for Reliable Docking of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

This paper studies the challenges of reliable data transfer between autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and a docking station in the deep sea, an area that has gained significant attention in underwater exploration. While AUVs facilitate flexible and versatile long-term underwater operations without human intervention, low docking success rates have long posed obstacles to the advancement of this technology. To address this issue, we introduce two antenna systems aimed at facilitating the docking procedure and improving its success rate. The first system is an out-of-line series feed slot (OLSFS) antenna operating at 2.4 GHz, which enables omnidirectional wireless data transfer over centimeter ranges between the AUV and the docking station, thus easing the angular alignment requirements during the docking process. The second system is a loaded waveguide antenna that operates in the lower part of the ultra-high frequency (UHF) band, permitting decimeter-range wireless data transfer between AUVs and the docking station. This further alleviates challenges related to docking distance and precise alignment. This antenna offers broad operational frequencies, a wide radiation pattern, and a circularly polarized signal, all of which contribute to a fast communication link in the deep sea with minimal impact from misalignment between the AUV and the docking station. Finally, both antennas are tested through simulations and experiments, demonstrating consistency between the results.