Design of hovering underwater robotic platform to capture harmful marine organisms

There are many harmful marine organisms, such as starfishes, in underwater environments. There are two ways to eliminate such organisms: using a trawler, and by diving. The first method damages marine environments, and the second method is dangerous and inefficient. We propose a method to eliminate harmful organisms using a robotic platform. The required functions are investigated extensively by interviews and literature reviews. Based on our investigation, we developed an underwater robotic platform composed of four rotatable thrusters to maintain the position and the attitude during capturing manipulation. Dynamic modeling is performed to design the robotic platform. The hovering control algorithm and the capturing manipulator will be developed in the near future.