Modelling and control of a marine robot arm

Abstract

The model of a robot arm intended for underwater tasks is defined. The model presented was obtained by introducing the hydrodynamic effects, which were calculated according to the equation of Morison (in J.F. Wilson, Ed., 1989) in the derivation of the equations of motion. The most important hydrodynamic influence on the arm dynamics is related to the added mass concept, which originates a virtual mass mechanism. This has as a consequence a large increment on the control input. The simulation presented shows that the nonlinear variable structure system is robust with hydrodynamic interaction.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>