Planning and control for co-ordination of underwater manipulators

Presents early ideas and results from work being carried out on the automated use of co-ordinated manipulators underwater. The specific goal is to construct and operate a two-manipulator system capable of operating under closed loop computer control with higher level activities implementing planning and a task level operator interface. The system would be deployed from a remotely operated vehicle to carry out general inspection and intervention work in typical oil exploration and production tasks. Early results are presented showing the suitability of self-tuning control, and low order system identification in particular, for control of the manipulator joint angles. The approach to implementing kinematic motion/obstacle avoidance for the arms, and to planning the activity of each arm is also discussed. Implementation is proceeding using a pair of Slingsby TA9 seven function hydraulic manipulators and a network of SUN workstations ad Pcs with on board DSP devices