In this paper some selected aspects of both reliability and safety with respect to underwater vehicles, particularly underwater remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) are dealt with. A Man-Technology-Environment system is presented. A reliability-related structure and the system of such a vehicle is discussed and the issue of selecting a reliability level is deliberated.

This paper reports on the status and design of the operational remotely operated vehicle Victor 6000, rated for 6000 m depth and of the 3000 m depth autonomous underwater vehicle Asterxx operated by Ifremer the French Institute for Sea Exploitation. Victor 6000 is part of a global system built of subsystems, scientific modules, winch and cable, dead weight and umbilical, positioning subsystem u...

The underwater vehicle-manipulator systems (UVMS) face significant challenges in trajectory tracking and motion planning because of external disturbance (current payload) kinematic redundancy. Former algorithms can finish the end-effector (EE) free singularity redundancy solution alone. However, only a few analytical studies have been conducted on coordinated UVMS considering dynamics controlle...

The use of an autonomous surface vehicle as an auxiliary agent to improve connectivity in a network of autonomous underwater vehicles is investigated. An algorithm is developed that consists of an optimal waypoint generator and a minimum-time guidance law that is used to steer the vehicle to the waypoint. This algorithm is used together with a communication architecture to improve underwater ve...

Due to the great technological improvement obtained in the last decades, it became possible to use robotic vehicles for underwater exploration. During the execution of a certain task with the robotic vehicle, the operator needs to monitor and control a number of parameters. If some of these parameters, as for instance the position and the orientation of the vehicle, could be controlled automati...

Development of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) which meets the design constraints and provides the best hydrodynamic performance is really an important challenge in the field of hydrodynamics. In this paper a new profile is used for designing the hull of AUVs. The nose and tail profiles of an AUV using presented profile is designed such that it can properly consider the length constraints...

The use of an autonomous surface vehicle as an auxiliary agent to improve connectivity in a network of autonomous underwater vehicles is investigated. An algorithm is developed that consists of an optimal waypoint generator and a minimum-time guidance law that is used to steer the vehicle to the waypoint. This algorithm is used together with a communication architecture to improve underwater ve...

In the procedure of designing an underwater vehicle or robot, its maneuverability and controllability must be simulated and tested, before the product is finalized for manufacturing. Since the hydrodynamic forces and moments highly affect the dynamic and maneuverability of the system, they must be estimated with a reasonable accuracy. In this study, hydrodynamic coefficients of an autonomous un...