2A2-M03 Development of An Underwater Robot with Soil Sampling Function obtained by Thrusters : The third report:System Design with Movable Buoyancy Mechanism(Underwater Robot and Mechatronics)

Abstract

This paper describes a new underwater robot for core sampling. We have already proposed a manportable size underwater robot for core sampling. The proposed robot can move to desired positions by thrusters. However, the motion efficiency in the horizontal direction is low because the cross section of the robot in the horizontal direction is considerably large. Moreover, since the total length of the robot in the vertical direction has 2.3m, it is impossible to release it from shallow areas of seaside. To solve those problems, we use a movable buoyancy mechanism in this paper. The system design of the movable buoyancy mechanism based on hydrodynamics is described.