• Title/Summary/Keyword: Underwater Exploration

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Implementation of a distributed Control System for Autonomous Underwater Vehicle with VARIVEC Propeller

  • Nagashima, Yutaka;Ishimatsu, Takakazu;Mian, Jamal-Tariq
    • 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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    • 1999.10a
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    • pp.9-12
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    • 1999
  • This paper presents the development of a control architecture for the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) with VARIVEC (variable vector) propeller. Moreover this paper also describes the new technique of controlling the servomotors using the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The AUVs are being currently used fur various work assignments. For the daily measuring task, conventional AUV are too large and too heavy. A small AUV will be necessary for efficient exploration and investigation of a wide range of a sea. AUVs are in the phase of research and development at present and there are still many problems to be solved such as power resources and underwater data transmission. Further, another important task is to make them smaller and lighter for excellent maneuverability and low power. Our goal is to develop a compact and light AUV having the intelligent capabilities. We employed the VARIVEC propeller system utilizing the radio control helicopter elements, which are swash plate and DC servomotors. The VARIVEC propeller can generate six components including thrust, lateral force and moment by changing periodically the blade angle of the propeller during one revolution. It is possible to reduce the number of propellers, mechanism and hence power sources. Our control tests were carried out in an anechoic tank which suppress the reflecting effects of the wall surface. We tested the developed AUV with required performance. Experimental results indicate the effectiveness of our approach. Control of VARIVEC propeller was realized without any difficulty.

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Finite Element Analysis of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic Frame for Multi-legged Subsea Robot (다관절 복합이동 해저로봇을 위한 탄소섬유 복합소재 프레임의 구조 해석)

  • Yoo, Seong-Yeol;Jun, Bong-Huan;Shim, Hyungwon;Lee, Pan-Mook
    • Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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    • v.27 no.6
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    • pp.65-72
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    • 2013
  • This paper describes a finite element analysis (FEA) of the body frame of a subsea robot, Crabster200 (CR200). CR200 has six legs for mobility instead of screw type propellers, which distinguishes it from previous underwater robots such as remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). Another distinguishing characteristic is the body frame, which is made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP). This body frame is designed as a rib cage structure in order to disperse the applied external loads and reduce the weight. The frame should be strong enough to support many devices for exploration and operation underwater. For a reasonable FEA, we carried out specimen tests. Using the obtained material properties, we performed a modal analysis and FEA for CR200 with a ready posture. Finally, this paper presents the FEA results for the CFRP body frame and the compares the characteristics of CFRP with conventional material, aluminum.

Conceptual design of a MW heat pipe reactor

  • Yunqin Wu;Youqi Zheng;Qichang Chen;Jinming Li;Xianan Du;Yongping Wang;Yushan Tao
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.56 no.3
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    • pp.1116-1123
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    • 2024
  • -In recent years, unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV) have been vigorously developed, and with the continuous deepening of marine exploration, traditional energy can no longer meet the energy supply. Nuclear energy can achieve a huge and sustainable energy supply. The heat pipe reactor has no flow system and related auxiliary systems, and the supporting mechanical moving parts are greatly reduced, the noise is relatively small, and the system is simpler and more reliable. It is more favorable for the control of unmanned systems. The use of heat pipe reactors in unmanned underwater vehicles can meet the needs for highly compact, long-life, unmanned, highly reliable, ultra-quiet power supplies. In this paper, a heat pipe reactor scheme named UPR-S that can be applied to unmanned underwater vehicles is designed. The reactor core can provide 1 MW of thermal power, and it can operate at full power for 5 years. UPR-S has negative reactive feedback, it has inherent safety. The temperature and stress of the reactor are within the limits of the material, and the core safety can still be guaranteed when the two heat pipes are failed.

Classification of Seabed Physiognomy Based on Side Scan Sonar Images

  • Sun, Ning;Shim, Tae-Bo
    • The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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    • v.26 no.3E
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    • pp.104-110
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    • 2007
  • As the exploration of the seabed is extended ever further, automated recognition and classification of sonar images become increasingly important. However, most of the methods ignore the directional information and its effect on the image textures produced. To deal with this problem, we apply 2D Gabor filters to extract the features of sonar images. The filters are designed with constrained parameters to reduce the complexity and to improve the calculation efficiency. Meanwhile, at each orientation, the optimal Gabor filter parameters will be selected with the help of bandwidth parameters based on the Fisher criterion. This method can overcome some disadvantages of the traditional approaches of extracting texture features, and improve the recognition rate effectively.

Dynamics modeling of a semi-submersible autonomous underwater vehicle with a towfish towed by a cable

  • Park, Jinmo;Kim, Nakwan
    • International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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    • v.7 no.2
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    • pp.409-425
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    • 2015
  • In this paper, we employ a dynamics modeling method for investigating a multi-body dynamics system of semi-submersible autonomous underwater vehicles consisting of a towing vehicle operated near the water surface, a tow cable, and a towfish. The towfish, which is towed by a marine cable for the purposes of exploration or mine hunting, is modeled with a Six-Degree-of-Freedom (6-DOF) equation of motion that reflects its hydrodynamics characteristics. The towing cable, which can experience large displacements and deformations, is modeled using an absolute nodal coordinate formulation. To reflect the hydrodynamic characteristics of the cable during motion, the hydrodynamic force due to added mass and the drag force are imposed. To verify the completeness of the modeling, a few simple numerical simulations were conducted, and the results confirm the physical plausibility of the model.

지표레이다(GPR) 탐사에 의한 하상퇴적물 조사

  • Jang, Hyeon-Sam;Jeong, Seong-Tae
    • Journal of the Korean Geophysical Society
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    • v.5 no.1
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    • pp.51-62
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    • 2002
  • Investigation of underwater sedimentary layers has been carried out with GPR(Ground Penetration Radar) survey. FPR survey has been proved to be very satisfactory since the target area has shallow water depth of about 2.5 m, is a lake with no water flow, and the thickness of mud layer, which is a main survey target, is relatively thin. The results clearly showed the underwater sedimentary layers, which includes mud, sand, gravel and basement layer. Specially, the distribution and total amount of mud layers from the survey results can be used as a basic data for the dredging of mud layer in the area.

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Swimming pattern analysis of a Diving beetle for Aquatic Locomotion Applying to Articulated Underwater Robots (다관절 유영로봇에 적용하기 위한 물방개의 유영패턴 분석)

  • Kim, Hee-Joong;Lee, Ji-Hong
    • The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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    • v.7 no.4
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    • pp.259-266
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    • 2012
  • In these days, researches about underwater robots have been actively in progress for the purposes of ocean detection and resource exploration. Unlike general underwater robots such as ROV(Remotely Operated Vehicle) and AUV(Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) which have propellers, an articulated underwater robot which is called Crabster has been being developed in KORDI(Korea Ocean Research & Development Institute) with many cooperation organizations since 2010. The robot is expected to be able to walk and swim under the sea with its legs. Among many researching fields of this project, we are focusing on a swimming section. In order to find effective swimming locomotion for the robot, we approached this subject in terms of Biomimetics. As a model of optimized swimming organism in nature, diving beetles were chosen. In the paper, swimming motions of diving beetles were analyzed in viewpoint of robotics for applying them into the swimming motion of the robot. After modeling the kinematics of diving beetle through robotics engineering technique, we obtained swimming patterns of the one of living diving beetles, and then compared them with calculated optimal swimming patterns of a robot leg. As the first trial to compare the locomotion data of legs of the diving beetle with a robot leg, we have sorted two representative swimming patterns such as forwarding and turning. Experimental environment has been set up to get the motion data of diving beetles. The experimental equipment consists of a transparent aquarium and a high speed camera. Various swimming motions of diving beetles were recorded with the camera. After classifying swimming patterns of the diving beetle, we can get angular data of each joint on hind legs by image processing software, Image J. The data were applied to an optimized algorithm for swimming of a robot leg which was designed by robotics engineering technique. Through this procedure, simulated results which show trajectories of a robot leg were compared with trajectories of a leg of a diving beetle in desired directions. As a result, we confirmed considerable similarity in the result of trajectory and joint angles comparison.

A Study on the Underwater Target Detection Using the Waveform Inversion Technique (파형역산 기법을 이용한 수중표적 탐지 연구)

  • Bae, Ho Seuk;Kim, Won-Ki;Kim, Woo Shik;Choi, Sang Moon
    • The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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    • v.34 no.6
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    • pp.487-492
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    • 2015
  • A short-range underwater target detection and identification techniques using mid- and high-frequency bands have been highly developed. However, nowadays the long-range detection using the low-frequency band is requested and one of the most challengeable issues. The waveform inversion technique is widely used and the hottest technology in both academia and industry of the seismic exploration. It is based on the numerical analysis tool, and could construct more than a few kilometers of the subsurface structures and model-parameters such as P-wave velocity using a low-frequency band. By applying this technique to the underwater acoustic circumstance, firstly application of underwater target detection is verified. Furthermore, subsurface structures and it's parameters of the war-field are well reconstructed. We can confirm that this technique greatly reduces the false-alarm rate for the underwater targets because it could accurately reproduce both the shape and the model-parameters at the same time.

DSP-Based Micro-Modem for Underwater Acoustic Communications (DSP 기반 초소형 수중 음향통신 모뎀)

  • Lee, Dongsoo;Lee, Sangmin;Park, Sung-Joon
    • The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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    • v.39C no.3
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    • pp.275-281
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    • 2014
  • Recently, the need for various underwater application systems targeting efficient resource exploration and aquatic ecosystem monitoring is rapidly increasing in littoral sea and inland waters. In this paper, we focus on the research and development of digital module of acoustic micro modem which can be used for underwater mobile communication systems and underwater sensor network systems. Specifically, a digital module of acoustic modem embedding digital signal processor is designed and implemented. On top of the developed hardware platform, physical layer frame generation and recovery and channel coding algorithms are mounted and tested in a water tank and a pond to verify its functionality and performance. According to experimental results, less than 1 percent of total computational power is consumed in the processing of frame control and convolutional code with the data rate of 1 kbps. Thus, the performance of micro modem could be improved by loading efficient baseband algorithms into the processor while maintaining the implemented hardware.

A Development of Exploration System for High Quality Underwater Mineral Resources (고품위 해저 광물자원 탐사시스템 개발)

  • Kim, Young-Jin;Cho, Young-June
    • Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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    • 2009.05a
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    • pp.316-319
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    • 2009
  • Currently for exploring marine resources, After confirming the location of the resources by controlling search equipment and sensor module in research vessel, the method which collects sample of searched resources and analyzes the quality and a contents of the resources in research vessel is been applying. This search method is structure which analyzes an ingredient in ship and decides the quality of the resources. And real-time processing for an effective resources search is been demanding. Therefore in this paper, we have developed a resources identification algorithm that can display the type feature of resources by real-time 3D Graphic.

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