Development of an Underwater Manipulator and Its Free-Floating Autonomous Operation

This paper addresses the novel design of an underwater manipulator with a lightweight multilink structure and its free-floating autonomous operation. The concept design reduces the coupling between the manipulator and the vehicle efficiently, even in the case where the vehicle weight in air is not significantly greater than the manipulator weight. The specific implementation of the mechanical structure is elaborated. Moreover, a closed-loop control system based on binocular vision is proposed for underwater manipulation. In the end, experimental results demonstrate that the conceived underwater manipulator can accomplish the autonomous operation quickly.