Underwater Agent Vehicle for Manipulation and Object Recovery Using Winch System

We developed a new concept of underwater agent vehicle and conducted a preliminary test of recovering a heavy object. We fabricated the small agent vehicle that was designed for manipulation. The vehicle includes a gripper, sensors, and a winch system that increases the lift force of the agent low thrust. The agent can autonomously navigate specific areas, has object detection abilities and is intended for deployment to areas where large underwater vehicles cannot access. In fact, we successfully conducted manipulation within a water tank. The agent vehicle was deployed on the water surface and explored underwater to detect and grasp a relatively heavy object that was lifted up to the surface with help of the winch. Therefore, we verified that the proposed concept of underwater manipulation is suitable to handle heavy objects.