Virtual platform of a manned submersible vehicle carrying an underwater manipulator

In this paper, we develop a virtual platform of a manned submersible vehicle carrying an underwater manipulator to animate operation tasks under the deep sea. The models of the vehicle and the manipulator refer to the structures of the “Jiaolong” deep manned submersible vehicle and a master-slave servo hydraulic manipulator, respectively. The master-slave manipulator with 7 functions developed by Shenyang Institute of Automation (SIA), Chinese Academy of Sciences, is able to perform operation tasks below the ocean´s surface 7000 meters. The platform is a powerful multi-purpose tool: First, it can be used for training an operator to telepresence operate the virtual manipulator to complete basic tasks under the deep sea by coordinating a cradle head, the manned submersible vehicle and the underwater manipulator; Second, it can be used to test or to validate motion control methods for operating the submersible and manipulator. In order to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the virtual platform, we present two typical underwater operation tasks: picking-up a rock sample and making a mark.