Autonomous underwater sampling using a manipulator and stereovisual servoing

We propose a system, composed of a manipulator and a stereovision module mounted on the autonomous underwater vehicle Twin-Burger 2 to sample underwater jellyfish-like small animals. Visual servoing of the robot is performed with the data from the stereovision module. A moving target and a LED fixed on the manipulator's end are tracked in real time. The manipulator is designed to avoid any motion perpendicular to the main axes of its elements that would generate drag forces and perturb the vehicle's position. An experiment in which the robot tracks and catches a submersed ball with the manipulator is presented.