Indian Journal of Geo-Marine Science

Vol. 40 (2), April 2011, pp. 214-221

Design and analysis of laminar hull SWATH based unmanned surface vehicle
Muljowidodo K.1, Sapto Adi Nugroho2*, Nico Prayogo2, and Munif Sudaryono1
1

Faculty of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Institut Teknologi of Bandung (ITB), Bandung, Indonesia.

Center for Unmanned System Studies (CentrUMS), Institut Teknologi of Bandung (ITB), Bandung, Indonesia.
[E-mail: * ssaptoadi@gmail.com]
Received 23 March 2011, revised 28 April 2011

Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) was one of unmanned solution for marine application. Theres a lot of technology
behind the research and development of unmanned surface vehicle. USV offer some advantages for routine marine Patrol
operation. For the future, with additional payload sensor for surveillance and high performance communication, this vehicle
expected to replace the Navy patrol on sea area. USV thats has been developed on Center for Unmanned System Studies
(CentrUMS)-ITB was based on SWATH (Small Wetted Area Twin Hull) technology. SWATH technology offers some
advantages for as a surface vehicle. One of the most important of SWATH design is on the hull design. This statement based
on the fact thats the most resistance for SWATH type vehicle on twin submerged underwater hull. For higher efficiency and
long endurance, laminar hull became one of most solution. All aspect of design consideration thats involved on this
Laminar Hull of this vehicle will be described on this paper.
Keywords: SWATH (Small Wetted Area Twin Hull), Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) , marine patrol operation,
hull, radio

Introduction
USV are not a modern invention and various
projects have been conducted since the second world
war, leading to a number of radio controlled USV
being build and operated. These early USV system
were primarily used as gunnery and missile target
systems. Some remote mini sweeping application
were developed in the 1950s and 1960s and other
experimental monitoring systems and attack systems
have been reported from time to time1. Since the end
of the 1990s, a number of significant research and
development programs on advanced USVs have been
conducted2,3. Afew USV system are presented below
(Figure 1).
The major USV subsystems are described as
follow1:
a) Hull (or Multi-Hull)
b) Auxiliary structural Elements
c) Engines and Associated propulsion subsystems.
d) Energy/fuel subsystems
e) On-board communications, command and
control subsystem which includes on board
processing subsystems for the USVs:

Own Sensor systems

Engine management Systems

Payload sensor systems

Navigation, guidance and control (NGC)

subsystems
g) Host facility based mission command and
control workstation.
h) Host to drone communication infrastructure.
Development cost of specialized unmanned surface
vehicle bodies, airframes or hulls tend to be very high.
Hence, during initial proof of principle phrases of
many unmanned vehicle programs, existing platforms
from conventional systems are used or modified to
provide the basis for the unmanned system platforms.
USVs have been developed around a number of
different existing hull types including jetski hulls,
RIBs, customs tri hulls, and swath catamaran Hulls1.
USV thats currently developed by CentrUMS have
special Hull Design consideration. As with any
marine vehicle design, the choice of USV hull
depends on the nature of desired USV operation and
its associated sea keeping requirement, the
performance flexibility required, the number, types
and
masses
of
the
different
payload
sensors/equipment that the USV is to host and, of
course, cost constraints.
The overall design of prototype USV thats had
been developed will be illustrated below (Table 1,
Figure 2):

MULJOWIDODO et al.: DESIGN OF SWATH BASED UNMANNE SURFACE VEHICLE

215

Fig. 1Current generation of unmanned surface vehicle .

Table 1. Technical specification of CentrUMS-USV prototype.
Dimension (L W H)

1622mm 862 mm 923 mm

Speed
Weight on Air
Power
Endurance
Propulsion & Control

Max . 10 Knot
65 Kg
2.5 Hp
6 hrs
2 DC Electric Brushless Thruster (@
12Kgf), 3 Independent Control surface
on Bow and Stern
Radar, Obstacle avoidance system,
thermal Camera, High Speed Radio
Communication.

Payload

Design of this USV is based on SWATH

technology. Application of SWATH technology for
small research vessels should be considered during
the planning phase of new or replacement ships.
Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH), or
semi-submerged ship, is a relatively recent
development in ship design. Although patents
employing this concept show up in 1905, 1932, and
1946, it was not until 1972 that an 89-foot prototype
model was built5. Principle of the SWATH ship is that
submerged hulls do not follow surface wave motion,

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INDIAN J MAR.SCI., VOL 40, NO. 2, APRIL 2011

Fig. 2CentrUMS USV design

and struts supporting an above water platform have a

small cross-section (waterplane) which result in
longer natural periods and reduced buoyancy force
changes. Hull fins further dampen motions and
provide dynamic stabilization when underway.
Results of all this is that SWATH ships, both in
theory and performance, demonstrate a remarkably
stable environment and platform configuration which
is highly attractive for science and engineering
operations at sea. Flexibility of SWATH technology
size and configuration allow a wide range of
applications both in open ocean and coastal regimes.
It is time that the oceanographic community takes a
hard look at what a SWATH can offer.

Fig. 3General SWATH configuration and nomenclature [5]

MULJOWIDODO et al.: DESIGN OF SWATH BASED UNMANNE SURFACE VEHICLE

Design concept of SWATH ships consists of two

hulls or pontoons submerged beneath the water's
surface and connected to the upper hulls by thin single
or tandem struts. A cross structure connects the struts
above the upper hulls and supports the superstructure.
This concepts illustrated on this figure below (Figure 3):
Substantially all the buoyancy for the vessel is
provided by two submerged pontoons with reserve
buoyancy maintained in the upper hulls. Draft, for
operations at sea, can be 50 percent of the total
displacement volume typically is in the lower hulls and
the remainder in the submerged section of the vertical
struts. This configuration results in dramatically
reduced motions because it tends to decouple the ship
from surface waves. Two submerged lower hulls do
not follow surface wave motion; and the waterplane
area (that is, the cross-sectional area of the thin struts at
the waterline) is small. Conversely, a monohull of
equal size has much larger waterplane area and no
benefit to deeply sunken hulls to reduce buoyancy
force changes. Monohull vessels are characterized by
seasickness, slamming, shipping of green water, and
degraded performance in developed seaways due to
large pitch and roll motions and with high
accelerations. Monohull vessels must avoid beam and
quartering seas minimize these effects which is not
always possible on science missions. However, the
pitch and roll motions of SWATH vessels are low in
both magnitude and acceleration. They can maintain
course and speed in higher sea states than a monohull
or catamaran of comparable or larger size.
Commonly design of submersible hull, used
torpedo shape geometry. But for CentrUMS USV
have used laminar body hull to increased the
efficiency flow around the body.
Skin friction and hull form drag contribute to
overall vehicle drag. Friction drag varies with speed
and the exposed surface area so smaller hulls with less
surface area have less friction drag. Hull Form drag is
a function of the how well the hull shape minimizes
flow separation. Longer, more slender shapes tend to
be better in this respect. Test results show that
streamlined forms with length to diameter ratios
between 5 and 7 are best for minimizing drag.
From the simple perspective of drag reduction, a
form which promotes laminar flow within the
boundary layer is the best choice. The Carmichael
hull, developed and tested by Dr. Bruce Carmichael
of Rockwell International in the 1970s is a good
example of such a hull form (Figure 4). In laminar

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Fig. 4Carmichael Laminar Flow Body Hull [6]

Fig. 5Pressure coefficient plot on NACA 66-015 profile

Fig. 6Pressure coefficient plot on CentrUMS MBH- 54-015 profile

flow, fluid particles move in laminate or layers. Skin

friction drag is much lower than in a turbulent
boundary layer where the fluid particles move more
erratically resulting in higher shear stresses between
layers and at the surface6.

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INDIAN J MAR.SCI., VOL 40, NO. 2, APRIL 2011

Fig. 7Drag and Moment at 10 knot Cruising Speed

Materials and Methods

Some works to projection from theory to real
condition need big effort. Sometimes not closely
similar. But some approach methods and step by step
works will be take to minimize the time , risk and cost
for the best results.
Numerical & Hydrodynamics simulation
Early in the design process, extensive numerical
simulation will be performed to predict the dynamic
and stability characteristic of the several hull form

candidate. Dynamics of this USV prototypes,

including hydrodynamic parameter uncertainties, are
highly nonlinear, coupled, and time varying. Several
modeling of laminar body hull proposed by
researchers will be investigated. The effect of thruster
dynamics on the vehicle also becomes significant,
especially when the vehicle has slow and fine motion.
Therefore, accurate modeling and verification by
simulation are required steps in the design process.
Available
commercial
software
such
as
Computational Fluid Dynamics will be utilized to

MULJOWIDODO et al.: DESIGN OF SWATH BASED UNMANNE SURFACE VEHICLE

219

Fig. 8Drag and Moment at 5 knot Cruising Speed

help understand the complex behavior of underwater

environment. Some parameters and visually flow
quality around the body hull will be extracted to
review the Design.

be applied to find the most optimized construction

that can endure enormous special load and corrosive
environment. The viability of using composite
material will be emphasized.

Mechanical Design and Manufacturing Prototypes

Laminar body hull need good, rigid and strong
construction. Critical load started from surface
condition (deployment ) until operating depth
pressure, needs more intensive analysis. Finite
Element Analysis involved to this works to determine
stress on structure of vehicle especially on thats
extreme condition. Several configuration material will

Testing and Validation

A series of testing will be conducted to assess the
performance of the Laminar body hull of USV
prototypes. The testing of prototypes will be
conducted in the shallow water environment with the
purpose of validating the basic control and
communication system. Pressure on body, wake
generation, flow quality will be observed. Ultimate

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INDIAN J MAR.SCI., VOL 40, NO. 2, APRIL 2011

Fig. 9Drag and Moment Full Body at 10 knot Cruising Speed

MULJOWIDODO et al.: DESIGN OF SWATH BASED UNMANNE SURFACE VEHICLE

sea-testing will be performed after repeatable

successes with the preceding series of tests.
Results and Discussion
Based on methods above, some analysis results will
be described as follow. Control & numerical Analysis
becomes the first step to determines which geometry
thats generate and contribute the most efficient flow
with some special case operating condition.
For the first step of numerical and hydrodynamics
analysis, some candidate of laminar body hull was
investigated. And some results from this step will be
described below (Figure 5, Figure 6) for comparison
performance between common standard profile and
Laminar body hull CentrUMS USV.
For two figure above with same reynold number
(10^7), the MBH 54-015 showed good results. The
separation flow for NACA 66-015 occurred at 40%
chord length. But for MBH 54-015 occurred almost at
60% chord length. Almost tents of profile reviewed
and analysis by this methods until found the best one.
Recently years Computational fluid dynamics
software becomes more powerful with several
capability to extract the analysis problem. On this
CentrUMS USV laminar body Hull , theres 2 main
analysis methods to introduced on this works:
Drag, moment analysis at several operating cruising
speed of single laminar body hull. (Figure 7, Figure 8).
Drag, Moment Analysis at several operating
cruising speed of overall USV with each geometry
type of laminar hull.(Figure 9).
Conclusion
Design and analysis of laminar body hull of
SWATH based on USV have presented on this paper.
From the above analysis of results we can conclude
some statement as follow :

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CentrUMS MBH 54-015 profile showed good

results which have prediction separation point at
60 % of Chord Length.
Each Hulls for 5 knot operating cruising speed and
2 m Operating Depth, donated Drag Force = 32,23
N. For 10 Knot Operating speed and with the same
operating depth, donated Drag force = 106.61 N.
If compared with overall drag force of this USV,
SWATH type Hull donate almost 82.8 % . It
means all hydrodynamic aspect depend on the
subsurface section (Submerged Hull).
For further study, need more calculation and
analysis for control surface placement of these
laminar body hull. How many contribution to
disturb and affect of flow around the hull.
All the analysis results need to tested and validate
for all represent kinds of flow. Fabrication results
quality especially on concentricity and roughness
surface became the most problem for the
performance of this vehicle hull.
Acknowledgement
Present study has been supported by Center for
Unmanned system Studies (CentrUMS)-ITB and PT.
Robo Marine Indonesia as Industrial Partner.
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