• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.237-244
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• 2018

When underwater rubble leveling work is carried out by a robot, real-time information on the topography around the robot is required for remote control. If the topographical information with respect to the current position of the robot is displayed as a 3D graphic image, it allows the operator to plan the working schedules and to avoid accidents like rollovers. Up until now, the topographical recognition was conducted by multi-beam sonars, which were only used to assess the quality before and after the work and could not be used to provide real-time information for remote control. This research measures the force delivered to the bucket which presses the mound to determine whether contact is made or not, and the contact position is calculated by reading the cylinder length. A variable bang-bang control algorithm is applied to control the heavy robot arms for the positioning of the bucket. The proposed method allows operators to easily recognize the terrain and intuitively plan the working schedules by showing relatively 3-D gratifications with respect to the robot body. In addition, the operating patterns of a skilled operator are programmed for raking, pushing, moving, and measuring so that they are automatically applied to the underwater rubble leveling work of the robot.