A concept design of a small ocean vehicle with flap-foils to harvest wave energy

Power supply is an important inhibiting factor of autonomous operation of small ocean vehicles, wave energy vibration harvest method is a viable solution. The usual vibration energy harvest device is excited by its housing frame driven by external oscillation, subject to limited vehicle geometry size, and the low frequency of ocean waves, electrical power generated is very limited. A concept vehicle design with novel energy harvest method is proposed in this paper, with a couple of flap-foils to harvest wave energy. The flap-foils are forced to rotate when ocean waves pass by, and transmit their rotation movement and force directly to the energy harvest element. Theoretical analysis and numerical computation are carried out to find the optimal parameters to generate maximum electricity, results show that this flap-foil method can greatly increase the harvest capability.