An Articulated-arm Underwater Mobile and Manipulation Robot with Thrusters for Both Suction and Propulsion ``Lamprey-1'' -Calculation of Adhesive Force for Negative Pressure Effect Plate Required During Wall Suction Work and Its Verification Experiments-

This paper proposes an articulated-arm underwa- ter robot with a suction mechanism, which includes thrusters for both suction and propulsion. A robotic arm encounters fluid resistance during manipulation. However, generating a suction force using a propulsion thrusters enable stable manipulation. This suction force depends on the arm’s movement. In this research, the suction force required to attach the wall was esti- mated based on a dynamic model that includes fluid resistance. The experiment revealed the relationship between the input value of the electric speed controller (ESC) for thrusters and the suction force. Furthermore, the experiment showed that the developed robot can maintain suction to a pool wall with this estimated suction force. Results confirmed that the proposed dynamic model can estimate the required suction force for 10 out of 12 arm-end trajectories.