Investigation and Evaluation of Low cost Depth Sensor System Using Pressure Sensor for Unmanned Underwater Vehicle

This paper describes the investigation and evaluation of low cost depth sensor system for unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) using pressure sensor. With the growing use of UUV, the purpose of this paper is to investigate and evaluate two types of low cost pressure sensor system for underwater vehicle to prevent buckling or damage, and analyze the accuracy and reliability between two types of pressure sensor systems for underwater vehicle. The system with good performances in-term of accuracy and reliability with low cost will be used as sensor for UUV and to study the effect of three types of condition of water density for testing pressure sensor system such as water tank, lake and swimming pool. The pressure sensors used are barometric pressure sensor since the sensor measure for the absolute pressure and MPX4250AP and MPX5700AP, integrated silicon pressure sensor on-chip signal conditioned, temperature compensated and calibrated which also in absolute configuration. This pressure sensor will be operating automatically when it touches the water after UUV is activated. The result obtained shows that both pressure sensor have the different performances. Also in this paper the different results with different water density will be discussed. Based on the results of the analysis, MPX AP sensor is more suitable to be applied to UUV with low cost budget. For range depth up to 30 meter, MPX 4250 AP more suitable to used and MPX 5700 AP the range depth up to 70 meter.