• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.229-236
• /
• 2008

The deep-sea miner is the tracked vehicle system which drives on the deep-seabed and gathers a manganese nodules. The miner is operated by remote control in real-time by the station of surface vessel. So operating S/W is a important part of miner remote operating. At present, the test miner has been designed and manufactured for near-shore sea-test. The test miner consists of mechanical parts, and electric-electronic parts. Because those parts should be controled and monitored remotely, operating S/W for control and monitoring is necessary by all means. In this paper, real-time operating S/W for a control and monitoring of the test miner was designed and developed using PXI, embedded controller and LabVIEW. This real-time operating S/W was developed for an efficient test of test miner in a near seabed area. Moreover, database management system(DBMS) was developed too for the data management of test miner monitoring using MS SQL and LabVIEW.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
• /
• 1996.11a
• /
• pp.891-895
• /
• 1996

Performance and efficiency of hybrid (hydraulic-mechanical) pick-up device of deep sea manganese nodules collector are very sensitive to altitude and altitude of pick-up head relative to undulating seafloor. For this reason, motion control of pick-up head relative to the changing deep sea topography and other disturbances is of particular importance in design of pick-up device. The concept of design axiom is applied to a pick-up device of hybrid type. Kinematic analysis conducted in absolute Cartesian coordinates gives position, velocity, and acceleration of the hydraulic cylinders which enable the pick-up head to keep the preset optimal distance from seafloor. Inverse dynamic analysis provides the driving forces of hydraulic cylinders and the reaction forces at each joint. Design sensitivity analysis is performed in order to investigate the effects of possible design variables on the change of the maximum strokes of hydraulic cylinders. The direct differentiation method is used to obtain the design sensitivity coefficients.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
• /
• v.15 no.3
• /
• pp.68-74
• /
• 1998

Performance and efficiency of deep seabed collector is a primary factor for feasibility of commercial deep ocean mining. The efficiency of manganese nodules collector depends on vehicle mobility relative to undulating seafloor and is attributed pickup head to keep altitude and elevation of it against seafloor. For this reason, motion control of pickup head relative to the changing deep-sea topography and other disturbances is of particular importance in design of pickup device. The concept of design axiom is applied to a pickup device of hybrid type in order to evaluate the concept design. Kinematic analysis conducted in absolute Cartesian coordinates gives position, velocity, and acceleration of the hydraulic cylinders which enable the pickup head to keep the preset optimal distance from seafloor. Inverse dynamic analysis provides the driving forces of hydraulic cylinders and the reaction forces at each joint. Design sensitivity analysis is performed in order to investigate the effects of possible design variables on the change of the maximum strokes of hydraulic cylinders. The direct differentiation method is used to obtain the design sensitivity coefficients.

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
• /
• 2001.10a
• /
• pp.160-163
• /
• 2001

In order to develop a nodule conveying system through a flexible pipe out of the deep-seabed manganese nodule miner, an experimental study of the solid-water slurry flow in vertical pipe is performed as the first stage of total experiments. Hydraulic characteristics of the pipe slurry flow such as slip velocity, transport concentration and pressure gradient are investigated for the size of particle, load ratio, and flow rate of water. The higher the load ratio is, the larger the transport concentration and pressure gradient become. The bigger the size of particles is, the larger the pressure gradient becomes. The effectiveness of the flow rate to hydraulic performance is also investigated. This results are to be used for designing crusher and pump, and operating the conveying device.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.41-46
• /
• 2012

A deep-sea manganese nodule miner consists of 4 parts: the pickup device, crusher, disposal device, and tracked vehicle. The tracked vehicle is an essential component to keep the self-propelled miner moving across deep-sea soil. The performances of the tracked vehicle are influenced by noise factors: the shear strength of the seafloor, bottom current, seafloor slope, track speed, reaction forces of flexible hose, etc. It is necessary to adopt a robust design method that improves the performances and minimizes the variation caused by noise factors. Taguchi's method, the most widely known robust design method, searches for the robust optimum using an orthogonal array composed of the product of the inner array and outer array. In this paper, we propose a new screening technique to reduce the number of input factors and apply the MRSN (Multi-Response Signal to Noise) ratio to convert multiple performances into single one in order to overcome the difficulties and limitations of using Taguchi's method in a case with many input factors and multiple performances. A test miner was already designed and tested. It has about 1/10 the capacity of a commercial one and was successfully operated at an in-shore area. Taguchi's robust design was applied to the tracked vehicle of the test miner, and design improvements were implemented for the vehicle.

• Ocean and Polar Research
• /
• v.32 no.4
• /
• pp.463-473
• /
• 2010

Inshore tests were performed in order to verify the design concept of deep sea manganese nodule miner at a site near Hupo at East Sea of Korea in June of 2009. Total mining tests of the test miner, named 'Minero$^{(R)}$', together with flexible hose, lifting pump and lifting hose were accomplished. In this study, the performances of three subsystems of testminer (vehicle, pick-up device, and launch-and-recovery device) were analyzed for feasibility assessment of self-propelled remotely controlled miner, and also to compile basic data for designing a pilotminer. Performances of the test miner were defined based on the Functional Requirements of Axiomatic Design. The inshore tests revealed that the test miner generally satisfies the functional performances. Feasibility assessment and reflection on results are discussed within.