Motion model development for very shallow water/surf zone crawler

The Very Shallow Water/Surf Zone (VSW/SZ) environment presents a challenging problem to Mine Countermeasures (MCM) operations conducted in military operations involving amphibious landings. Present tactics involve human swimmers and present a risky and time-consuming scenario. There are Unmanned Autonomous Vehicle (UAV) systems under development that will replace the human swimmers in VSW/SZ MCM operations. One of these systems is an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV), commonly known as a crawler. The crawler system is a small tracked vehicle, which will carry a suite of sensors that will enable it to perform necessary MCM functions such as detect, classify, identify, mark, re-acquire, and neutralize threat targets To aid in the development of the crawler system and associated tactical use, a three degree-of-freedom motion model is being developed for incorporation into an engineering level simulation under development at the Coastal Systems Station (CSS). At present the equations of motion with empirical force models have been implemented into the simulation.