Design and Modeling of a Low-Cost Observation Class ROV for Dam Inspection

Underwater vehicles are of great interest in seabed inspection tasks, nevertheless dams, which required complete emptying to inspect their walls, or else call a professional diver which is of great risk to its life given the marine currents existing below. As a result, designing an underwater vehicle (ROV/AUV: Remotely Operated Vehicle/Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) for the inspection and exploration of seabed and dams can replace the human being in this task and avoid emptying for maintenance work. In this article we will present a design of a low-cost ROV for observation based on the various existing underwater robots. A modeling part and numerical calculation approach for determining the differents coefficients are presented at the end.

I. Introduction

Dams are important structures for countries due to their diverse uses, source of potable water, irrigation and source of energy [1]. Algeria has a large number of dams (about 114 between large and small), The forecast is for 139 dams by 2030. Algeria is ranked the first among the Arab world, and occupies the second place in Africa, in terms of structures number [2]. In order to extend the life of a dam with a very good performance, periodic and efficient maintenance is strongly necessary [3], this maintenance concerns: first, the condition of the hydraulic structure (the wall of the dam), because a dam undergoes the phenomenon of aging after 40 years, the main indications are the cracks and the layers of salt and limestone on the walls and leakages [4], in second, the level of siltation which causes a huge problem by reducing the storage capacity of the dam, Algeria reservoirs have lost one quarter of the original capacity already due to silting [5], so why it is necessary to periodically plan bathymetric surveys in order to program the dredging operation. The current method to surround the siltation is to carry out the bathymetric surveys maps every four years, which is long, and more the period increases, the task becomes expensive. The inspection of the structure (the body of the dam) requires the complete emptying of the dam to be inspected, or else call upon human intervention (diver) which is of great risk to his life. It is around this context that we posed the Problems to propose a solution based on the use of an underwater vehicle (ROV/AUV) for security reasons and cost reduction [3]. several companies and laboratories claiming to provide underwater robots for Dam inspection (Seabotix, VideoRay, FrugoSurvey, InuktunServices,…) [6] [7]. This robot must be capable of measuring and providing information about the siltation level and inspecting the dam wall, without taking the risk of calling on human intervention. This underwater vehicle will be equipped with the necessary electronics instrumentation to properly carry out the tasks assigned to it, as well as the perception that will make it autonomous to complete its task.