Dynamic Modeling and Manipulability Analysis of Underwater Robotic Arms

Abstract

This paper describes dynamic manipulability analysis of robotic arms moving in viscous fluid. The manipulability is a functionality of manipulator system in a given configuration under the limits of joint ability with respect to the task required to be performed. To investigate the manipulability of underwater robotic arms, a modeling and analysis method is presented. The dynamic equation of motion of underwater manipulator is derived based on the Lagrange-Euler equation considering with the hydrodynamic forces caused by added mass, buoyancy and hydraulic drag. The hydrodynamic drag term in the equation is established as analytical form using Denavit-Hartenberg (D-H) link coordination of manipulator. Two analytical approaches based oil manipulability ellipsoid are presented to visualize the manipulability of robotic arm moving in viscous fluid. The one is scaled ellipsoid which transforms the boundary of joint torque to acceleration boundary of end-effector by normalizing the torques in joint space, while the other is shifted ellipsoid which depicts total acceleration boundary of end-effector by shifting the ellipsoid as much as gravity and velocity dependent forces in work space. An analysis example of 2-link manipulator with proposed analysis scheme is presented to validate the method.