9729814 Yun, Xiaoping Naval Postgraduate School CISE Research Instrumentation: Accurate Control of Underwater Manipulators Using Inertial Sensors This research instrumentation grant contributes to the purchase of two MotionPak inertial sensors, two digital gyro compasses, and one water speed sensor, which will enable the following projects:- Coordination of an Underwater Vehicle and an Onboard Manipulator, and - Traction Control of an Autonomous Ground Vehicle on Rough Terrains. The objective of the proposed research projects is to investigate control and coordination of an underwater vehicle-manipulator system. An inertial sensor, water speed sensor, and digital compass are integrated to provide accurate estimates of vehicle motions. A novel nonlinear feedback control algorithm is developed to compensate for vehicle-manipulator dynamic interactions. Because of the uncertain nature of undersea environments and lack of hydrodynamic modeling data, it is crucial to validate theoretical algorithms by physical experiments. The proposed instrumentation makes it possible to conduct physical experiments using the proposed half-dry half-wet approach. The experiments not only validate the control algorithm proposed in this research, but also establish an entirely new, cost-effective underwater experimentation procedure. The integrated sensor system (replacing the water speed sensor by wheel encoders) is also applied to an all-terrain land vehicle for wheel slip estimation and for improved traction control.
