Determination of Dynamic Parameters for Underwater Robots with Crawler Drives

Abstract

The paper presents methods used to determine the parameters necessary to build a mathematical model of an underwater inspection robot with a crawler drive. The parameters present in the dynamics equation will be determined by means of advanced mechatronic design tools, including: CAD/CAE software and MES modules. The robot dynamics are described by means of type II Lagrange equations for a non-holonomic system. The details of the kinetic and dynamic equation derivation are highly complex and exceed the scope of this paper. In this paper, the authors concentrate on the methods of determining such dynamic equation parameters as: hydrodynamic resistance factor, precise robot volume and weight, frontal cross-sectional surface and mass moments of inertia.