Title: Underwater motion control of a bio-inspired father-son robot based on hydrodynamics analysis

Authors: Ruochen An; Shuxiang Guo; Chunying Li; Tendeng Awa

Addresses: Graduate School of Engineering, Kagawa University, Takamatsu, Kagawa – 761-0396, Japan ' Graduate School of Engineering, Kagawa University, Takamatsu, Kagawa – 761-0396, Japan; Key Laboratory of Convergence Medical Engineering System and Healthcare Technology, The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology, Haidian District, Beijing – 100081, China ' Graduate School of Engineering, Kagawa University, Takamatsu, Kagawa – 761-0396, Japan ' Graduate School of Engineering, Kagawa University, Takamatsu, Kagawa – 761-0396, Japan

Abstract: The traditional underwater sample collection task is performed by an underwater vehicle equipped with a rigid multi-link arm, which has caused great interference. In this paper, a bio-inspired father-son robot is designed and developed for sample acquisition. Underwater motion control of the father-son robot is of vital importance, especially when it needs to work underwater. At first, we focused on developing a novel father-son system to perform an underwater sample acquisition task. The hydrodynamics analysis of the father robot is finished using FLUENT to obtain the relationship between water resistance and the speed of the underwater robot. After that, the control strategy of thrust from the thrusters is proposed using kinematical analysis of the underwater robot, according to the difference between the current depth and the target depth. Simulation and experiments verify the effectiveness of the proposed motion control strategy.

Keywords: father-son robot; spherical underwater robot; hydrodynamic analysis; motion control strategy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMA.2022.130414

International Journal of Mechatronics and Automation, 2022 Vol.9 No.4, pp.210 - 218

Received: 20 Oct 2021
Accepted: 11 May 2022
Published online: 19 Apr 2023 *

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