Underwater Motion Characteristics Evaluation of a Bio-inspired Father-son Robot

Abstract

Conventional underwater Sample Acquisition tasks are performed by underwater vehicles equipped with rigid multilink arms. However, the motion of the conventional robotic arm interferes with the stability of the underwater vehicle when performing sampling tasks. In this paper, a fish-inspired small under robot is designed and developed as a son robot for sample acquisition, which is connected to the spherical underwater robot father robot by a tether. Firstly, we proposed the novel father-son robot system to realize the underwater sample acquisition task. And then, the motion control is proposed for the father-son robot system. The son robot actuated by one water-jet thruster can realize underwater basic motions. The hybrid thrusters as the thruster mechanism for the father robot. Also, the control circuit of the father-son robot system is designed. Finally, the hydrodynamic analysis and experiment results verify the validity and reliability of the father-son system.