Waypoint tracking control of a multi-legged underwater robot crabster

Korea Research Institute of Ships & Ocean Engineering(KRISO) developed a new type of underwater robot, ”Crabster(CR200)” for a precise survey and underwater tasks at a range down to 200m underwater by. This paper introduce a waypoint tracking control algorithm for efficient underwater exploration of CR200. The algorithm consist of Heading controller, Position controller and Path segment selector with four diverse modes which are Forward heading mode, Fixed heading mode, Fixed target mode and Target locked crab gait mode. Effectiveness and applicability of the proposed algorithm are confirmed by simulation and experiment results. The experiment is performed on March and May 2015, that are CR200's function test in ocean engineering water tank facility and real sea test in Korea yellow sea for Korea cultural properties survey.