【Explanation】Recently, the manta-ray soft-body submersible independently developed by the School of Navigation of Northwestern Polytechnical University successfully completed a 1025-meter deep gliding and flapping propulsion sea test in the North Reef of Xisha, China, and collected temperature, salt, and deep water. Cultural information, major scientific and technological breakthroughs have been made.

　　It is understood that the manta ray is also known as the "devil fish". It has a streamlined flat body. This shape is not only conducive to swimming propulsion, but also conducive to diving and sliding, which can effectively use the energy of the fluid to achieve more efficient sliding. sports.

This characteristic of manta ray fully meets the bionic needs of long-endurance and large-scale underwater propulsion.

　　[Concurrent] Pan Guang, Dean of School of Navigation, Northwestern Polytechnical University

　　Compared with our conventional underwater submarine, this submarine is not like that conventional submarine. It only relies on propulsion devices, propellers or some propellers for propulsion.

Its form mainly has a technology that integrates gliding and this flapping, which is equivalent to that it has a long-distance gliding that can be adjusted by heavy buoyancy. At the same time, coupled with this kind of in-situ flapping, it can make this The two movement postures are well combined, so in fact it is also very similar to this manta ray, the large devil fish, its movement state.

　　[Explanation] The small manta ray-like submarine relies on flexible wing flapping propulsion, and can achieve high maneuvering actions such as forward swimming, backward swimming, and in-situ turning. However, it has low carrying capacity and limited range, which cannot meet the needs of large-scale operation tasks.

In order to improve the aircraft's carrying capacity, endurance time, practical operation and other aspects, the research team decided to increase its weight to increase its carrying capacity, and integrate another heavy buoyancy gliding propulsion mode, so that it has both long endurance and high maneuverability. .

　　It is understood that since 2016, Northwestern Polytechnical University has independently developed a 4 type bionic underwater vehicle engineering prototype, and successfully carried out a pool test, a lake test, and a sea test.

The manta ray soft-body submersible that completed the sea test at a depth of 1025 meters is a type IV prototype with a wingspan of 3 meters and a weight of 470 kg. It has the combined propulsion capability of sliding and flapping. It can efficiently "glide" in the water for long distances. , Can also "flutter" with super high mobility.

　　[Concurrent] Cao Yong, teacher, School of Navigation, Northwestern Polytechnical University

　　Through this diving depth relative to the depth, diving to a depth of one thousand meters or even several thousand meters for the collection of ocean hydrological information of large depth profiles.

After the collection is acquired, then for some specific areas of focus, if a certain area of ​​mine is equivalent to detailed investigation, we can switch from the gliding state to the fluttering state to achieve a high mobility Track control, then this process is equivalent to the monitoring of hydrological information in situ for this area, so as to achieve an initial dimension of hydrological information collection of this wide-area common sense, as well as the in-situ fine dimensionality of this specific area Investigation.

　　[Explanation] Cao Yong said that in the future, the manta-ray submarine can also swim with fish in the ocean pasture to monitor the health of the fish in the ocean pasture.

In addition, it can further increase its acoustic and magnetic sensing loads, and develop its application value for future marine environmental protection, and it will play an important role in marine environmental protection in the future.

　　At present, Northwestern Polytechnical University has begun to cooperate with relevant units to carry out environmental monitoring on the corals of the Xisha North Reef, and collect hydrological information such as temperature, salinity, and depth in the surrounding sea at a depth of 1,000 meters.

　　Mei Yi Taki Gaocheng Zhang Chenhui reports from Xi'an

Editor in charge: [Wu Qingcai]