The aim of this course is to provide the student with the fundamental elements of robot mechanics with particular reference to remotely controlled underwater articulated systems operating in the marine environment. For this purpose, a wide range of methodologies will be first provided for the functional design, kinematic, static generalized force and dynamic analysis of mobile marine articulated systems and their implementation with remote control. The first theoretical part will be completed with the dynamic analysis of oscillating articulated systems in the marine environment. Secondly, elements of design and use of Underwater Vehicle-Manipulator System UVMS, Remotely Guided and Autonomous Underwater Robotic Vehicles (ROV and AUV) will be introduced, including classification, types and uses. The student will be able to understand the static and dynamic behavior of UVMS, ROV and AUV, the main on-board systems of UVMS, ROV and AUV. The course will also provide elements on mission profile, design criteria and methods, dedicated manipulators and sensors for submarine vehicles, as well as on guidance, control and autonomous navigation principles, on-board and shore support systems of UVMS, ROV and AUV. The practical part of the course is based on the practical construction of a marine UVMS, ROV or AUV to be used in undergraduate student competitions.
teacher profile teaching materials
Master Degree LM-33 Mechanical Engineering for Marine Resources
Industrial and service robots
Characteristics of industrial robots and their classification; RIA and ISO definitions. Examples of industrial and service robots from the main manufacturers: Unimation 1954, ASEA IRB 1975, IBM SCARA 1978, PUMA, Cincinnati Milacron T3 (1974), General Motors wrist, COMAU SMART NX2 and similar, KUKA KR 210 KR C2 ED05, FANUC Robotics F-200iB R-30iB, ABB 340 FlexPicker Delta with 4 degrees of freedom, Intuitive da Vinci Surgical System.
Underwater robots
Characteristics of underwater robots and their classification. Manned and unmanned systems: submarines, submersibles, atmospheric diving suits; military, research and tourist applications of submarines; depth records by category. Fundamental distinction between ROV and AUV. Operating modes: free swimming, bottom crawling, structurally reliant. Gliders and hybrid vehicles. General architecture of an ROV and of an AUV: actuators, sensors and control. Examples: bathyscaphe Trieste, Pisces V, Royal Navy ROV 1950, Hercules, Argus, Pluto Plus. Lagrangian drifters: onboard instrumentation, actuation and control, main applications and issues. Inertial navigation systems.
The marine environment
Challenges of the marine environment. Characteristics of the water column; acoustics and sonar; optical properties. Column properties: thermocline, metalimnion, pycnocline, halocline, chemocline, lutocline, oceanic mixed layer. Other properties and quantities of interest: temperature, salinity, density, conductivity, mixed layer depth, dissolved oxygen, percent oxygen saturation, apparent oxygen utilization, silicate, phosphate, nitrate. Basic laws and principles: surface tension, wettability, pressure inside a droplet, capillary rise, Pascal's principle, Stevin's law, Archimedes' principle. Marine currents and tides. Marine animals, algae and plants.
Design and construction of an ROV
Activities related to the practical construction of a marine ROV. Vehicle structure and frame; use of CAD tools and mechanical design. Propulsion and buoyancy; choice of materials. Overview of the control system, software and hardware, control boards and codes. Actuation system, motors and power. Overview of drifters and of the arms equipping the ROV. Safety, logistics and mission; main applications. Technological demonstrator and digital twin; experimental acquisition of attitude, architecture and measurement chain; example of use of an IMU unit.
Rotations and representation of attitude
Introduction to rotations in SO(3). Elementary attitude matrices. Parametrization methods of attitude matrices; Euler and Cardan parametrizations, with examples and exercises. Relationship between the angular velocity of a body and the attitude matrix.
Transformation matrices in homogeneous coordinates and Denavit-Hartenberg parameters
Introduction to transformation matrices in homogeneous coordinates; properties of displacement matrices in homogeneous coordinates. Introduction to the Denavit and Hartenberg parameters for revolute and prismatic pairs; computation of the transformation matrix in homogeneous coordinates as a function of the Denavit and Hartenberg parameters; representation of an RRR robot.
First-order kinematic analysis and control
General architecture of a robot: single-axis control and control of the whole robot. Inverse kinematic problem of serial robots by numerical methods, Newton-Raphson, and by analytical methods after Pieper. Introduction to kinetostatic duality; kinetostatic duality in E(3) and in SE(3); compliance matrix. Computation of the geometric Jacobian in the general case and introduction to screw theory, twist and wrench, with its applications in robotics. Computation of the Jacobian in the Denavit and Hartenberg parametrization. Control methods for trajectory tracking in E(3) and in SE(3).
Dynamics of robots and of multibody systems
Direct dynamic problem and dynamic simulation of multibody systems in space. Introduction to rigid body dynamics in space by means of the Euler parameters. General formula for the step-by-step integration procedure of the equations of dynamics of constrained systems in space. Methods for deriving the equation of motion based on the principle of virtual work in dynamics and on variational principles: Lagrange's equations; application of Lagrange's equation to the derivation of the general equation of motion of the manipulator under dynamic conditions. Inverse dynamic problem: static equilibrium of a manipulator by the recursive method; dynamics of serial robots by recursive methods. SNAME, robotic and multibody notations and their differences.
Software tools and computer exercises
Characteristics of the Wolfram Mathematica software and its application in robotics, with advantages and disadvantages; MatLab toolbox and Peter Corke toolbox.
Exercise: attitude matrices in Wolfram Mathematica.
Exercise: transformation matrices in homogeneous coordinates in Wolfram Mathematica.
Exercise: writing a Mathematica code for the representation of an RRR robot.
Exercise on the experimental acquisition of attitude by means of an IMU unit.
Fondamenti di meccanica applicata alle macchine
Terza edizione | 2024 | Casa Editrice Ambrosiana. Distribuzione esclusiva Zanichelli
Additional Lecture Notes
Programme
Syllabus of the course of Mechanics of Underwater Robots - 9 CFUMaster Degree LM-33 Mechanical Engineering for Marine Resources
Industrial and service robots
Characteristics of industrial robots and their classification; RIA and ISO definitions. Examples of industrial and service robots from the main manufacturers: Unimation 1954, ASEA IRB 1975, IBM SCARA 1978, PUMA, Cincinnati Milacron T3 (1974), General Motors wrist, COMAU SMART NX2 and similar, KUKA KR 210 KR C2 ED05, FANUC Robotics F-200iB R-30iB, ABB 340 FlexPicker Delta with 4 degrees of freedom, Intuitive da Vinci Surgical System.
Underwater robots
Characteristics of underwater robots and their classification. Manned and unmanned systems: submarines, submersibles, atmospheric diving suits; military, research and tourist applications of submarines; depth records by category. Fundamental distinction between ROV and AUV. Operating modes: free swimming, bottom crawling, structurally reliant. Gliders and hybrid vehicles. General architecture of an ROV and of an AUV: actuators, sensors and control. Examples: bathyscaphe Trieste, Pisces V, Royal Navy ROV 1950, Hercules, Argus, Pluto Plus. Lagrangian drifters: onboard instrumentation, actuation and control, main applications and issues. Inertial navigation systems.
The marine environment
Challenges of the marine environment. Characteristics of the water column; acoustics and sonar; optical properties. Column properties: thermocline, metalimnion, pycnocline, halocline, chemocline, lutocline, oceanic mixed layer. Other properties and quantities of interest: temperature, salinity, density, conductivity, mixed layer depth, dissolved oxygen, percent oxygen saturation, apparent oxygen utilization, silicate, phosphate, nitrate. Basic laws and principles: surface tension, wettability, pressure inside a droplet, capillary rise, Pascal's principle, Stevin's law, Archimedes' principle. Marine currents and tides. Marine animals, algae and plants.
Design and construction of an ROV
Activities related to the practical construction of a marine ROV. Vehicle structure and frame; use of CAD tools and mechanical design. Propulsion and buoyancy; choice of materials. Overview of the control system, software and hardware, control boards and codes. Actuation system, motors and power. Overview of drifters and of the arms equipping the ROV. Safety, logistics and mission; main applications. Technological demonstrator and digital twin; experimental acquisition of attitude, architecture and measurement chain; example of use of an IMU unit.
Rotations and representation of attitude
Introduction to rotations in SO(3). Elementary attitude matrices. Parametrization methods of attitude matrices; Euler and Cardan parametrizations, with examples and exercises. Relationship between the angular velocity of a body and the attitude matrix.
Transformation matrices in homogeneous coordinates and Denavit-Hartenberg parameters
Introduction to transformation matrices in homogeneous coordinates; properties of displacement matrices in homogeneous coordinates. Introduction to the Denavit and Hartenberg parameters for revolute and prismatic pairs; computation of the transformation matrix in homogeneous coordinates as a function of the Denavit and Hartenberg parameters; representation of an RRR robot.
First-order kinematic analysis and control
General architecture of a robot: single-axis control and control of the whole robot. Inverse kinematic problem of serial robots by numerical methods, Newton-Raphson, and by analytical methods after Pieper. Introduction to kinetostatic duality; kinetostatic duality in E(3) and in SE(3); compliance matrix. Computation of the geometric Jacobian in the general case and introduction to screw theory, twist and wrench, with its applications in robotics. Computation of the Jacobian in the Denavit and Hartenberg parametrization. Control methods for trajectory tracking in E(3) and in SE(3).
Dynamics of robots and of multibody systems
Direct dynamic problem and dynamic simulation of multibody systems in space. Introduction to rigid body dynamics in space by means of the Euler parameters. General formula for the step-by-step integration procedure of the equations of dynamics of constrained systems in space. Methods for deriving the equation of motion based on the principle of virtual work in dynamics and on variational principles: Lagrange's equations; application of Lagrange's equation to the derivation of the general equation of motion of the manipulator under dynamic conditions. Inverse dynamic problem: static equilibrium of a manipulator by the recursive method; dynamics of serial robots by recursive methods. SNAME, robotic and multibody notations and their differences.
Software tools and computer exercises
Characteristics of the Wolfram Mathematica software and its application in robotics, with advantages and disadvantages; MatLab toolbox and Peter Corke toolbox.
Exercise: attitude matrices in Wolfram Mathematica.
Exercise: transformation matrices in homogeneous coordinates in Wolfram Mathematica.
Exercise: writing a Mathematica code for the representation of an RRR robot.
Exercise on the experimental acquisition of attitude by means of an IMU unit.
Core Documentation
Nicola Pio Belfiore, Augusto Di Benedetto, Ettore PennestrìFondamenti di meccanica applicata alle macchine
Terza edizione | 2024 | Casa Editrice Ambrosiana. Distribuzione esclusiva Zanichelli
Additional Lecture Notes
Attendance
Attendance is strongly recommended.Type of evaluation
Traditional examination consisting of a written test and an oral interview, with possible discussion of exercises, PC lab activities, and projects.