Experimental Study On Autonomous Manipulation For Underwater Intervention Vehicles

Autonomous manipulation refers to the capability of a robot system that performs intervention tasks requiring physical contacts with unstructured environments without continuous human supervision. Today, few Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are equipped with autonomous manipulators. SAUVIM (Semi Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Intervention Mission, University of Hawaii) is one of the first AUVs capable of autonomous manipulation. This paper presents one of the first successful underwater intervention mission of SAUVIM, consisting in a recovery operation of a submerged target. The focus of this manuscript is mainly on the manipulation aspect, introducing the solution adopted in order to achieve the goal.