UC San Diego

Obtaining real-time, long time-series data physical oceanography in shallow water regimes between five and ten meters continues to be an engineering challenge not only in terms of the process of obtaining and transmitting it, but creating a form that will allow it to operate unimpeded by vandalism. A conceptual design for a Dynamic Antenna utilizes a shifting mass to change the center of gravity, causing the assembly to rotate about a pivot to raise an antenna to pierce the surface and lower it to place it out of view underwater. Utilizing a range of environmental parameters that it is expected to be deployed in, the moments due to hydrodynamic loading as well as its own weight are analyzed and compared to examine an example configuration of the Dynamic Antenna's ability to overcome these forces to provide a suitable platform with enough clearance for antenna to transmit data and rotate said antenna down out below the surface. The specific factors will be the current forces modeled as a uniform flow profile, wave forcing derived from Morison forcing using the maximum horizontal wave particle velocity, and the static buoyancy and mass force. Understanding the factors that have the greatest impact on the system in terms of moment, further development can be conducted to reduce those factors' total influence on the system to create a more resilient, robust, and reliable mechanism