Design of An Omni-Directional Underwater Robotic Vehicle and Its Coordinated Motion Control

Underwater robotic vehicles (URVs) have been very attractive for scientific survey, construction, and maintenance in hazardous environments such as ocean and nuclear plant. The development of advanced vehicle technologies is accelerated by the demand for an underwater robotic vehicle with high performance and efficient operation in terms of time and cost. In the Autonomous Systems Laboratory, an autonomous URV was designed and its first model was built as a part of our research in developing a low-cost test platform for advanced vehicle technologies. This paper describes two controllers: nonlinear controller and adaptive controller for the coordinated motion of the vehicle and manipulator, considering the effect of thruster dynamics.