Development of an autonomous underwater vehicle for observation of underwater structures

Various kinds of robots have been developed parallel with progress of computer and the operations with robots in the extreme environment such as rescue, space and ocean are getting practical solutions. The underwater robots are expected as one of solutions for underwater activities i.e., maintenance of underwater structures, observations, scientific research, and investigated the efficiency during recent decades. Especially, the underwater structures are getting large-scale and large-depth. In order to do safe and efficient works, the works are desired to be carried out automatically. In these works, underwater images are one of the effective information, and also useful for various applications, including undersea exploration navigation, wreckage visualization. This paper describes development of autonomous underwater vehicle for observation of underwater environment.