A marine robot created by researchers at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) Mandi and Palakkad is capable of solving issues in real time, lowering maintenance costs, and lowering the chance of fatalities in underwater operation scenarios. The study, which received partial funding from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)’s Naval Research Board (NRB), has been published in the journals Ocean Engineering and Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems.
According to the researchers, a cutting-edge robot has been created for thorough underwater monitoring and inspections. It offers increased efficiency, reduced danger, and possible cost savings.
About 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered in water, with the oceans containing 96.5 percent of the planet’s total water. Only a small portion of the ocean floor and its hidden environment are known to humans.
“The ocean interior has primarily been observed using instruments lowered from research ships, as understood from history,” Jagadeesh Kadiyam, assistant professor at IIT Mandi’s Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, told PTI.
According to Kadiyam, a co-author of the study, regular ship trips take only one or two months, which limits the ability to monitor oceans in great detail.
“The creation of an underwater vehicle prototype and performance studies for intervention and inspection applications are the main areas of our research. To support the numerous missions in the seas and inland waters, a unique framework has been developed and put into place,” the speaker stated.
According to the professor, a number of models and experimental results have demonstrated the system’s performance in the face of outside disruptions such water currents and different payloads.
Since new technologies are being developed and old infrastructure is being rapidly expanded for either civic or defence purposes, the number of submerged structures has been continually rising. As such, frequent inspection, upkeep, and repair of these structures are imperative.
Underwater vehicles can be used to minimise human intervention when it was previously necessary for human divers to perform tasks underwater, which could have long-term health effects.
A professor at IIT Palakkad named Santhakumar Mohan outlined the difficulties faced by scientists creating aquatic robots.
“From a scientific perspective, the unpredictable aquatic environment and disturbances present many obstacles for the marine robotics field. The main method of communication underwater is still acoustics because radio waves have a difficult time travelling through water. The cars’ component costs are particularly high because this is a specialised market, according to Mohan.
“High-pressure operations underwater, the selection of non-corrosive materials, and waterproofing are further concerns. Therefore, unlike the vehicles used on land and in the air, marine robotic technology will need some time to evolve. Our work focuses on creating sophisticated controls and systems to improve the robot’s performance, efficiency, accuracy, and precision,” he continued.
There are many fixed-actuator or thruster configurations on the market that may be purchased, but oddly, it is currently not possible to select the best thruster design for a certain application. The number, placement, and configuration of thrusters, as well as their quantity, can alter the vehicle’s overall performance.
“Our research offers important information on selecting a certain configuration in the midst of unknown undersea disturbances based on the mission. To prove its usefulness for a range of underwater operations, a prototype test vehicle was created and put through a thorough testing process involving both simulations and in-person experiments.
“The deployment of these vehicles could play a crucial role in various applications, such as hydroelectric infrastructure inspection (inspecting submerged structures), environmental monitoring of water bodies (early detection of environmental issues), and search and rescue operations,” Mohan stated.
