Development of an autonomous underwater vehicle with human-aware robot navigation

AUV Tuna-Sand 2 developed in February 2016 can take photograph of the seafloor with high resolution using a camera and two LED strobe every five second and detect sea creature from it based on color information. If sea creature is detected from taken photograph, the AUV transmit its compressed image to the ship using acoustic modem for image transmission. Operator on the ship can select photographing position that the AUV return it, from received photograph. After instruction by operator using acoustic modem for command, the AUV can return to photographing position in the range of ± 0.3 m. In future work, we will develop visual feedback method and manipulation method for sea creature sampling.