Development of a Hydraulic Underwater Manipulator for Deep-Sea Survey AUV

We are developing a group of AUVs whose mission is to capture underwater creatures or acquire in-situ biological samples in the deep sea. The AUV under developing has a hydraulic manipulator to capture the target creature, and sends underwater images that provide biologists (operators) with information to determine which creatures should be targeted and captured during the operation. In this paper, the concept and design of hydraulic actuator for 5-axis manipulator, and the mechanics of manipulator is proposed, and the experimental results of manipulator control at 10 and 20 M Pa pressure are shown.

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