A New Tool to Access Deep-Sea Floor "Sampling-AUV"

Underwater robot is one of the important research tools to explore deep-sea. Especially, Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) attract attentions as new tools because they are un-tethered and suitable for wide area observation. As the next generation AUV, we have been developing a Sampling-AUV that can dive into deep-sea and bring back marine creatures using a mounted manipulator. In the mission, the AUV transmits the deep-sea floor images to the support ship using acoustic communication, and the operator selects the marine creatures to sample and bring back them. In this talk, we introduce the new AUV, the underwater manipulator and image processing techniques for sampling.

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