| Summary: | The current technological developments allow autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) to operate in deeper water with multiple functions including activities related to marine sciences, scientific researches, naval strategic intelligent and information gathering, oil and gas exploration, offshore platform underwater maintenance and surveillance, sea bed topological surveys and mappings and etcetera. Their capabilities to operate autonomously require a high-tech built-in computerized control system. One of the many important aspects in AUV is the necessity to have a trim tank control system to assist the AUV to be able to dive and surface or manoeuvre during the assigned operations. In this research the AUV is installed with two trim tanks located suitably aft and forward of the hull to provide the maximum trimming moment effects. The tanks are connected by piping to each other and fitted with control valves, a water transfer pump and an accelerometer sensor. Arduino Mega Board (AMB) open technology was used for the circuitries and the source codes design of the trim tank control system. Functional tests on the control system were carried out and it is proven that the main objectives of the study were achieved. © Springer International Publishing AG 2018.
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