Development of a small and modular UROV for environmental surveying

-The design of a reduction gear box for thruster module and the concept of new robot-

Abstract

The authors have been developing an underwater robot for surveying lakes so far. One important objective of the robot is to sample the bottom sediment of lakes. It is necessary to make the robot small and lightweight because the operation of the robot would be difficult in the field. In this paper, a small and powerful thruster module by optimizing the matching between the propeller and the motor characteristics. Using the optimized thruster, a new concept of implementing an underwater glider mechanism designed for the underwater robot to be used during surveying of lakes is proposed.