Autonomous underwater panel operation by GIRONA500 UVMS: A practical approach to autonomous underwater manipulation

This paper proposes a controller for the GIRONA500 Underwater Vehicle Manipulator System and reports experimental results for an autonomous floating-base valve-turning manipulation application. The selected method is based on kinematic control, avoiding the need for a complex, and difficult to obtain, hydrodynamic model. The method relies on the decoupled control of the vehicle and manipulator velocities using a combination of the task priority redundancy resolution and the task concurrence approaches. The paper discusses the manipulation tasks needed, their hierarchical organisation, and a set of strategies that were needed to complement the `standard´ task-priority approach to successfully solve the floating-base manipulation problem in water tank experimental conditions.