On Modeling and Adaptive Control of Underwater Robots

Abstract

In this paper issues relating to modeling of underwater vehicles and manipulators are discussed. The dynamic modeling procedure enables inclusion of effects of buoyancy and viscous friction on the robot. A regressor is identified and it relates robot torques to a vector of unknown dynamic parameters of the arm and properties of the underwater environment like density and viscocity. An adaptive control scheme for task level servo to achieve free trajectory tracking is discussed.