Abstract
It is important to explore and observe under the seabed in terms of biological and geological researches. In particular, sampling of the saline mud including seabed mineral resources and marine sediments plays a large part of the explorations. Therefore, we propose an excavation robot with peristaltic crawling for the explorations beneath deep-sea floor. This robot consists of three units; a propulsion unit, an excavation unit and an extraction unit. Oil hydraulic artificial muscle is strong candidate for a deep-sea propulsion actuator but we have not experienced of the deep-sea hydraulically-operated muscle development. We thus develop an excavation robot using pneumatic artificial muscle in the first stage of development of the proposed robot. We also have characteristic experiments, running experiments and an excavating experiments. As a result, we confirmed that an artificial muscle could be used as excavation robot's propulsion actuator.
