Abstract
This paper describes a method for preliminary designing the autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV), especially useful in the case when requirements concerning kinematic and dynamic parameters of vehicle motion are given in design assumptions. Concept of the method is based on dynamic equations which describe vehicle planar motion in vertical and horizontal directions, resulting from action of screw propellers or water ballast, respectively. The motion equations were determined by applying simplifications concerning both geometrical description of vehicle's form and flow phenomena. Their solutions were obtained in the form of closed analytical expressions which are both of cognitive and practical merits as they can serve to assess influence of vehicle's design parameters on its motion characteristics and simultaneously are convenient to formulate design optimization problems. Application of the method was illustrated by the attached examples dealing with determination of kinematic and dynamic characteristics of motion of the vehicle "Scylla" of set geometrical configuration and propulsion parameters.