Field Test of Aquatic Walking Robot for Underwater Inspection

Abstract

Field Test of Aquatic Walking Robot for Underwater Inspection Junichi Akizono, Mineo Iwasaki, Takashi Nemoto, Asamu Asakura Pages 151-156 (1990 Proceedings of the 7th ISARC, Bristol, United Kingdom, ISSN 2413-5844) Abstract: Aquatic walking robot named "AQUAROBOT" has been developed. Main purpose of the robot is to carry out underwater inspecting works accompanied with port construction instead of divers. This robot has two main functions. One is the measurement of the flatness of rock foundation mound for breakwaters by the motion of the legs while walking. The other is the observation of underwater structure by TV camera. AQUAROBOT is six-legged articulated “insect type” walking machine. Operation is fully automatic because this robot is so called intelligent mobile robot. The working depth is up to 50m. AQUAROBOT has an ultrasonic transponder system which is long base line type as a navigation device. It also has an underwater TV camera with ultrasonic ranging device at the end of the manipulator on the body. Through the field tests, the performance of the robot was proved to be sufficient for the practical use. Test results are as follows: Walking speed is 605m/min, on the flat floor in the test pool and 1.4m/min, on the irregular rubble mound in the sea. In the case of navigation, the positioning accuracy is within +/- 21cm. The robot can measure the flatness of rubble mound by the motion of the legs with the same accuracy as divers. Keywords: Walking Robot, underwater application, inspection work DOI: https://doi.org/10.22260/ISARC1990/0020 Download fulltext Download BibTex Download Endnote (RIS) TeX Import to Mendeley