The underwater swimming manipulator - a bio-inspired AUV

Abstract

Abstract-Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) have been used for environmental mapping and surveys of various kinds for some time. More recently, the AUVs have entered the domain of the remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to tackle some of the lighter subsea operations, such as inspection, maintenance, and repair (IMR) and light intervention tasks. The successful transition to AUVs for inspection of subsea infrastructure has pushed the technology towards AUVs equipped with robotic arms. Some AUVs with attached manipulator arms have demonstrated autonomous light intervention, but the majority of such tasks are still carried out using tethered and expensive ROVs with support vessels. The underwater swimming manipulator (USM) presented in this paper, is a snakelike bio-inspired AUV with exceptional accessibility and flexibility, due to its slender, multi-articulated structure. In this paper, we discuss why the USM is an appropriate system for certain tasks that are normally carried out by conventional ROVs and AUVs. Furthermore, we address the topic of kinematic control of the USM to utilize the inherent redundancy. Finally, we present and make use of a newly developed and versatile simulation environment for USMs to assert the applicability of the USM for performing subsea inspections and light intervention.

Path Following, Obstacle Detection and Obstacle Avoidance for Thrusted Underwater Snake Robots

“…These vehicles rely on being operated by a highly trained human in the loop. In order to make such operations safer and more cost-efficient, there has been an increasing interest in developing intervention AUVs (I-AUVs) (Ridao et al, 2014 ), underwater snake robots (USRs) (Mclsaac and Ostrowski, 1999 ; McIsaac and Ostrowski, 2002 ; Takayama and Hirose, 2002 ; Wilbur et al, 2002 ; Crespi et al, 2005 ; Yamada et al, 2005 ; Crespi and Ijspeert, 2006 ; Li et al, 2011 ; Stefanini et al, 2012 ; Liljebäck et al, 2014 ; Kelasidi et al, 2016a , b ) and underwater snake robots with thrusters (Sverdrup-Thygeson et al, 2016a , b ) as a step toward improved autonomy, dexterity and precision for underwater manipulation tasks. Detailed discussions on different underwater robotic systems such as ROVs, AUVs and bio-inspired robotic systems can be found in Kelasidi et al ( 2016a ) and Kelasidi et al ( 2017b ).…”

Unscented Kalman-filter-based sliding mode control for an underwater gliding snake-like robot

“…Recently, researchers have integrated the innovations and technologies of traditional and bionic underwater robots to improve the shortcomings of the existing robots. Sverdrup-Thygeson et al [12] and Kelasidi et al [13] equipped an underwater snake-like robot with the propellers of an autonomous underwater vehicle, which improved the locomotion capabilities of the robot in narrow regions. Zhang et al [14] combined an underwater glider with a fish robot, achieving the dual benefits of energy efficiency by gliding and high mobility by fish-like swimming.…”

Trajectory Tracking for Underwater Swimming Manipulators using a Super Twisting Algorithm

“…Since the USM can use the thrusters instead of the joints to create forward propulsion, the joints can be used to perform manipulation tasks and, thus, exploit the full potential of the inherent kinematic redundancy. This has been addressed in detail in .…”