Lappa: A new type of robot for underwater non-magnetic and complex hull cleaning

Abstract

Ahstract-This paper is concerned with the design and implementation of a new concept of robot to clean the underwater sections of ship hulls without using any magnetic attachment. The use of this type of robots on a regular basis to preserve a clean hull, usually when ships are in port or anchored, will improve the efficiency of the ships and will permit a reduction in the use of chemicals that are harmful to the environment to prevent the growth of marine life on the hull. The main contribution of the robot described in this paper is that it is a completely novel design that through an appropriate morphology solves the problems that arise when moving along hulls, including changing planes, negotiating appendices, portholes, corners, and other elements. It thus provides a basis for completely autonomous operation. The design and implementation of the robot is described and some simulations and tests in real environments are presented.

Review of Underwater Ship Hull Cleaning Technologies

“…c RiSE and d its toe with a large spine and e toe with a small spine (Asbeck et al 2006) Figure 14 Other adhesion technologies. a Mechanical design, motion, and real environment test of the robot (Souto et al 2013). b The crawling robot (Albitar et al 2016).…”

“…Souto et al ( 2013 ) designed a new underwater hull cleaning robot, as shown in Figure 14a . It is mainly used to clean the hull regularly to avoid excessive growth of marine organisms that decrease the performance of the ship.…”

“…It is mainly used to clean the hull regularly to avoid excessive growth of marine organisms that decrease the performance of the ship. This robot, which is 1690 mm long, 554 mm wide, and 340 mm high, is an underactuated and deformable robot that solves the problem of moving on different surfaces of the hull (Souto et al 2013 , 2015 ). Albitar et al ( 2016 ) designed a crawling robot, as shown in Figure 14b , that is mainly composed of a moving mechanism, suction cups, and cleaning devices (Albitar et al 2013 , 2014 , 2016 ).…”

Hornbill: A Self-Evaluating Hydro-Blasting Reconfigurable Robot for Ship Hull Maintenance

“…The author used a forward-looking sonar method that can provide an acoustic image wherein the obstacles were detected. D. Souto et al proposed a semi-autonomous hull cleaning system called lappa, which was designed in such a way to clean every nuke and corner [10]. Other similar works in floor sufface maintenance are presented in [11], [12].Although numerous literature studies demonstrated the autonomous ability of ship hull cleaning robots, they mostly deal with underwater operations.…”

Mathematical Modeling of Multipurpose Caterpillar Mobile Robot for Vertical Movement

“…Аналіз останніх досліджень і публікацій. У науково-технічній літературі є певна кількість публікацій стосовно автоматизації виконання технологічних операцій за допомогою МР вертикального переміщення, які оснащуються різнотипними притискними пристроями та рушіями для переміщення по вертикальних поверхнях [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10].…”