Underwater vehicle manipulators

Abstract

This chapter covers current commercial developments and major research activities for underwater vehicle-manipulator systems. It briefly describes the dynamics of underwater vehicle-manipulator systems to show the level of its complexity. The teleoperation of the underwater vehiclemanipulator system and sensor-based underwater vehicle manipulator controls, such as force control and visual servoing are discussed. Furthermore, it describes coordinated motion controls of underwater vehicle and manipulator systems and presents the results of recent developments in autonomous manipulation for autonomous underwater vehicles.