Applications of marine robotic vehicles

Abstract

The ocean covers about two-thirds of the earth and has a great effect on the future existence of all human beings. About 37% of the world's population lives within 100 km of the ocean. The ocean is generally overlooked as we focus our attention on land and atmospheric issues; we have not been able to explore the full depths of the ocean and its abundant living and non-living resources. For example, it is estimated that there are about 2,000 billion tons of manganese nodules on the floor of the Pacific Ocean near the Hawaiian Islands. We discovered, by using manned submersibles, that a large amount of carbon dioxide comes from the seafloor and extraordinary groups of organisms live in hydrothermal vent areas. Marine robots including unmanned surface vehicles and unmanned underwater vehicles can help us better understand marine and other environmental issues, protect the ocean resources of the earth from pollution, and efficiently utilize them for human welfare. This paper briefly presents some exemplary models of recent developments in marine robots in different application areas.

Development of Fault Accommodation System for Actuators of Underwater Manipulators

“…At this, fitting multilink underwater manipulators (UM) on AUVs is a very perspective tendency of development [3][4][5][6]. The manipulator-equipped AUVs can be effectively used for fulfillment of research operations in hydrogeology, hydrobiology, geophysics, hydrochemistry, in oil and gaze extraction.…”

Development of specialized modeling complex to study control systems of movable maritime objects

“…Development of control systems (CS) over movable objects with different purposes and the methods of their modeling have always been in the focus of leading scientists [3][4][5].…”

Risk modeling of autonomous underwater vehicle operation focusing on the human operator

“…Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are used in scientific, commercial and military surveys in order to map the sea floor, locate objects of interest, and measure properties of the sea water (Yuh et al, 2011). AUVs are mostly cigar shaped untethered vehicles which follow a preprogrammed mission path through the ocean.…”