AUV With Additional Thruster Stabilization System to Perform Contact Manipulation Operations

The paper describes a synthesis method of automatic hover mode stabilization systems of interventional autonomous underwater vehicles (I-AUV) equipped with an additional rotatable thruster. This thruster is installed on the same axis of rotation with the first joint of the underwater manipulator (UM) above the center of the I-AUV buoyancy on an outrigger rod mounted on a rotary platform. Additional thruster expands the I-AUV initial propulsion and steering complex (PSC). Changing the direction and magnitude of this thruster's thrust vector provides effective compensation for arbitrary force and torque effects from the UM, which lead to undesirable roll and pitch displacements of the I-A UV. At the same time the additional thruster force effects, which lead to undesirable linear I-AUV displacements, are compensated by the march and steering thrusters thrusts of the initial PSC. These thrusts are created in real time. As a result, it is possible to stabilize the I-AUV in the desired spatial position during the contact manipulation operations with underwater objects. At the same time, a thrust is provided at the mounting point of the UM. It's necessary so that the UM end effector (EE) exerts a given force on the work object surface. The operability and efficiency of the synthesized I-AUV stabilization system while performing contact manipulation operations are confirmed by the results of numerical modeling in Matlab/Simulink with visualization in the CoppeliaSim simulator.