• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.32-38
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• 2020

This paper describes a method for tracking attitude and position of underwater robots. Underwater work with underwater robots is subject to differences in work efficiency depending on the skill of the operator and the utilization of additional sensors. Therefore, this study developed an underwater robot that can operate autonomously and maintain a certain attitude when working underwater to reduce difference of work efficiency. The developed underwater robot uses 8 thrusters to control 6 degrees of freedom motion, IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), DVL (Doppler Velocity Log) and PS (Pressure Sensor) to measure attitude and position. In addition, the thruster allocation algorithm was designed to follow the control desired value using 8 thrusters, and the motion control experiments were performed in the engineering water basin using the thruster allocation method.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.8
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• pp.688-693
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• 2013

This paper proposes a new method on attitude control of an underwater robot by using five ABTs (Attitude Ballast Tank). A pipe is connected to the bottom of the ABTs and transfers water by a pump, while another pipe is connected to the top of the ABT to transfer air. The buoyancy center of the underwater robot can be changed by means of the water transfer. This way, the attitude of the underwater robot can be maintained and/or controlled as desired. The changes of the center of gravity and the buoyancy central are estimated by a Lagrangian function which is similar to that for an inverted pendulum. The controller in this paper is designed by modeling of the underwater robot and selecting suitable gains of a PD controller which has fast response characteristics. This paper shows the possibility of the attitude control of an underwater robot by changing the center of gravity and the buoyancy center of the robot. Moreover, experimental results verify that the controller is effective in maintaining Roll/Pitch of the underwater robot with very low power consumption.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.928-933
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• 2012

In this paper, the IR and compass sensors for the underwater system were used. The walls of the water tank have been recognized and avoided treating the walls as obstacles by the bio-mimetic underwater robot. This paper is consists of two parts: 1.The hardware part for the IR and compass sensors and 2.The software part for obstacle avoidance algorithm while the bio-mimetic robot is swimming with the obstacle recognition. Firstly, the hardware part controls through the RS-485 communications between a microcontroller and the bio-mimetic underwater robot. The software part is simulated for obstacle recognition and collision avoidance based upon the data from IR and compass sensors. Actually, the bio-mimetic underwater robot recognizes where is the obstacle as well as where is the bio-mimetic robot itself while it is moving in the water. While the underwater robot is moving at a constant speed recognizing the wall of water tank as an obstacle, an obstacle avoidance algorithm is applied for the wall following swimming based upon the IR and compass sensor data. As the results of this research, it is concluded that the bio-mimetic underwater robot can follow the wall of the water tank efficiently, while it is avoiding collision to the wall.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.1244-1248
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• 2003

This paper describes visual tracking procedure of the underwater mobile robot for nuclear reactor vessel inspection, which is required to find the foreign objects such as loose parts. The yellowish underwater robot body tends to present a big contrast to boron solute cold water of nuclear reactor vessel, tinged with indigo by Cerenkov effect. In this paper, we have found and tracked the positions of underwater mobile robot using the two color information, yellow and indigo. The center coordinates extraction procedures are as follows. The first step is to segment the underwater robot body to cold water with indigo background. From the RGB color components of the entire monitoring image taken with the color CCD camera, we have selected the red color component. In the selected red image, we extracted the positions of the underwater mobile robot using the following process sequences; binarization, labelling, and centroid extraction techniques. In the experiment carried out at the Youngkwang unit 5 nuclear reactor vessel, we have tracked the center positions of the underwater robot submerged near the cold leg and the hot leg way, which is fathomed to 10m deep in depth.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.268-268
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• 2000

In the inspection of the reactor pressure vessel using an underwater mobile robot, we developed a new bi-directional guidance control scheme between an underwater mobile robot and a laser pointer. We imposed fanning to the inclinometer embedded in the mobile robot to improve its transient response, and used heuristic control scheme to reduce accidents when the laser pointer losts the mobile robot. We implemented these algorithms to our reactor vessel inspect ion system and performed a series of experiments.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.141-149
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• 2016

In this technical note, the issues and challenges for the launch and recovery systems (LARS) and related techniques for the operation of an underwater robot from a manned platform are considered. Various types of LARS fitted to specific manned platforms, surface or sub-surface, are surveyed and categorized. The current UUV launch and recovery systems from surface ships and submarines utilize time consuming processes. As underwater robot technologies evolve and their roles are defined, safe and effective launch and recovery methods should be developed capable of reliable and efficient operations, particularly at a high sea state. To improve the existing underwater robot capabilities, LARS technology maturation is required in the near term, leading to the ability to incorporate autonomous LARS for an underwater robot on a manned platform. In the near term, particular emphasis should be placed on UUV LARS, which are surface ship based, with submarine based systems in the long term. Furthermore, for a dedicated LARS ship, independent of the existing host ship type, particular emphasis should be given to fully utilizing the capabilities of underwater robots.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.553-561
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• 2009

This paper presents development of ROV-type underwater robot capable of cleaning ship hull in automatic mode. The purpose of developing this robot is for underwater cleaning to secure the safety of divers who inspect and clean the ship hull. The robot consists of the cleaning system with rotating brush mechanism, a car-like driving mechanism, inspection system using video, and overall control system for underwater communication and operation. In this paper, we present overall design process of the cleaning system and operating system and technical contents of the overall control system for the underwater cleaning robot.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2003.07e
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• pp.2259-2262
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• 2003

This paper describes visual tracking procedure of the underwater mobile robot for nuclear reactor vessel inspection, which is required to find the foreign objects such as loose parts. The yellowish underwater robot body tend to present a big contrast to boron solute cold water of nuclear reactor vessel, tinged with indigo by Cerenkov effect. In this paper, we have found and tracked the positions of underwater mobile robot using the two color informations, yellow and indigo. The center coordinates extraction procedures is as follows. The first step is to segment the underwater robot body to cold water with indigo background. From the RGB color components of the entire monitoring image taken with the color CCD camera, we have selected the red color component. In the selected red image, we extracted the positions of the underwater mobile robot using the following process sequences: binarization labelling, and centroid extraction techniques. In the experiment carried out at the Youngkwang unit 5 nuclear reactor vessel, we have tracked the center positions of the underwater robot submerged near the cold leg and the hot leg way, which is fathomed to 10m deep in depth.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.372-378
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• 2013

In this paper, we research the localization problem of the crawler-type inspection robot for underwater structure which travels an outer wall of underwater structure. Since various factors of the underwater environment affect an encoder odometer, it is hard to localize robot itself using only on-board sensors. So in this research we used a depth sensor and an IMU to compensate odometer which has extreme error in the underwater environment through using Extended Kalman Filter(EKF) which is normally used in mobile robotics. To acquire valid measurements, we implemented precision sensor modeling after assuming specific situation that robot travels underwater structure. The depth sensor acquires a vertical position of robot and compensates one of the robot pose, and IMU is used to compensate a bearing. But horizontal position of robot can't be compensated by using only on-board sensors. So we proposed a localization algorithm which makes horizontal direction error bounded by using kinematics relationship. Also we implemented computer simulations and experiments in underwater environment to verify the algorithm performance.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.189-200
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• 2015

This paper gives an overview on the some potential applications and key technologies of biomimetic underwater robot for naval operations. Unlike most manned underwater naval systems, biomimetic underwater robots can be especially useful in near-land or harbour areas due to their ability to operate in shallow water effectively. Biomimetic underwater robot provide advantages in reaching locations that would be difficult or too dangerous for a manned vehicle to reach, as well as providing a level of autonomy that can remove the requirement for dedicated human operator support. Using multiple or schools of underwater robots would provide increased flexibility for navigation, communication and surveillance ability. And it alleviate some of the restrictions associated with speed and endurance design constraints.