Unmanned underwater vehicles are increasingly employed for maintenance and surveying tasks at sea, but their operation in shallow waters is often hindered by hydrodynamic disturbances such as waves, currents, and turbulence. These unsteady flows can induce rapid changes in direction and speed, compromising vehicle stability and manoeuvrability. Marine organisms contend with such conditions by combining proprioceptive feedback with flexible fins and tails to reject disturbances. Inspired by this strategy, we propose soft morphing wings endowed with proprioceptive sensing to mitigate environmental perturbations. The wing's continuous deformation provides a natural means to infer dynamic disturbances: sudden changes in camber directly reflect variations in the oncoming flow. By interpreting this proprioceptive signal, a disturbance observer can reconstruct flow parameters in real time. To enable this, we develop and experimentally validate a dynamic model of a hydraulically actuated soft wing with controllable camber. We then show that curvature-based sensing allows accurate estimation of disturbances in the angle of attack. Finally, we demonstrate that a controller leveraging these proprioceptive estimates can reject disturbances in the lift response of the soft wing. By combining proprioceptive sensing with a disturbance observer, this technique mirrors biological strategies and provides a pathway for soft underwater vehicles to maintain stability in hazardous environments.

翻译：无人水下航行器在海洋维护与勘测任务中的应用日益广泛，但其在浅水区域作业常受波浪、洋流及湍流等水动力扰动的影响。这些非定常流动可导致航行器方向与速度的快速变化，进而影响其稳定性与机动性。海洋生物通过结合本体感觉反馈与柔性鳍尾结构来应对此类扰动。受此策略启发，我们提出配备本体感觉传感的软体变形翼以缓解环境扰动。机翼的连续形变为动态扰动推断提供了自然途径：翼型弯度的突变直接反映了来流条件的变化。通过解析该本体感觉信号，扰动观测器可实时重构流动参数。为实现此目标，我们开发并实验验证了具有可控弯度的液压驱动软体翼动力学模型。随后证明基于曲率的传感能够精确估计攻角扰动。最后，我们展示了利用这些本体感觉估计值的控制器可有效抑制软体翼升力响应中的扰动。通过将本体感觉传感与扰动观测器相结合，该技术模拟了生物应对策略，为软体水下航行器在危险环境中保持稳定性提供了可行路径。