Marine Robotics for Deep-Sea Specimen Collection: A Systematic Review of Underwater Grippers.

The collection of delicate deep-sea specimens of biological interest with remotely operated vehicle (ROV) industrial grippers and tools is a long and expensive procedure. Industrial grippers were originally designed for heavy manipulation tasks, while sampling specimens requires dexterity and precision. We describe the grippers and tools commonly used in underwater sampling for scientific purposes, systematically review the state of the art of research in underwater gripping technologies, and identify design trends. We discuss the possibility of executing typical manipulations of sampling procedures with commonly used grippers and research prototypes. Our results indicate that commonly used grippers ensure that the basic actions either of gripping or caging are possible, and their functionality is extended by holding proper tools. Moreover, the approach of the research status seems to have changed its focus in recent years: from the demonstration of the validity of a specific technology (actuation, transmission, sensing) for marine applications, to the solution of specific needs of underwater manipulation. Finally, we summarize the environmental and operational requirements that should be considered in the design of an underwater gripper.

Marine Robotics for Deep-Sea Specimen Collection: A Taxonomy of Underwater Manipulative Actions.

In order to develop a gripping system or control strategy that improves scientific sampling procedures, knowledge of the process and the consequent definition of requirements is fundamental. Nevertheless, factors influencing sampling procedures have not been extensively described, and selected strategies mostly depend on pilots' and researchers' experience. We interviewed 17 researchers and remotely operated vehicle (ROV) technical operators, through a formal questionnaire or in-person interviews, to collect evidence of sampling procedures based on their direct field experience. We methodologically analyzed sampling procedures to extract single basic actions (called atomic manipulations). Available equipment, environment and species-specific features strongly influenced the manipulative choices. We identified a list of functional and technical requirements for the development of novel end-effectors for marine sampling. Our results indicate that the unstructured and highly variable deep-sea environment requires a versatile system, capable of robust interactions with hard surfaces such as pushing or scraping, precise tuning of gripping force for tasks such as pulling delicate organisms away from hard and soft substrates, and rigid holding, as well as a mechanism for rapidly switching among external tools.

Research Trends and Future Perspectives in Marine Biomimicking Robotics.

Mechatronic and soft robotics are taking inspiration from the animal kingdom to create new high-performance robots. Here, we focused on marine biomimetic research and used innovative bibliographic statistics tools, to highlight established and emerging knowledge domains. A total of 6980 scientific publications retrieved from the Scopus database (1950-2020), evidencing a sharp research increase in 2003-2004. Clustering analysis of countries collaborations showed two major Asian-North America and European clusters. Three significant areas appeared: (i) energy provision, whose advancement mainly relies on microbial fuel cells, (ii) biomaterials for not yet fully operational soft-robotic solutions; and finally (iii), design and control, chiefly oriented to locomotor designs. In this scenario, marine biomimicking robotics still lacks solutions for the long-lasting energy provision, which presently hinders operation autonomy. In the research environment, identifying natural processes by which living organisms obtain energy is thus urgent to sustain energy-demanding tasks while, at the same time, the natural designs must increasingly inform to optimize energy consumption.

A Minimal Metric for the Characterization of Acoustic Noise Emitted by Underwater Vehicles.

Underwater robots emit sound during operations which can deteriorate the quality of acoustic data recorded by on-board sensors or disturb marine fauna during in vivo observations. Notwithstanding this, there have only been a few attempts at characterizing the acoustic emissions of underwater robots in the literature, and the datasheets of commercially available devices do not report information on this topic. This work has a twofold goal. First, we identified a setup consisting of a camera directly mounted on the robot structure to acquire the acoustic data and two indicators (i.e., spectral roll-off point and noise introduced to the environment) to provide a simple and intuitive characterization of the acoustic emissions of underwater robots carrying out specific maneuvers in specific environments. Second, we performed the proposed analysis on three underwater robots belonging to the classes of remotely operated vehicles and underwater legged robots. Our results showed how the legged device produced a clearly different signature compared to remotely operated vehicles which can be an advantage in operations that require low acoustic disturbance. Finally, we argue that the proposed indicators, obtained through a standardized procedure, may be a useful addition to datasheets of existing underwater robots.

Haptic Localization with a Soft Whisker from Moment Readings at the Base.

This article focuses on haptic localization of very lightweight and delicate objects while applying a contact force >5000 times lower than the weight of the object. A soft whisker integrated with a Force/Moment (F/M) sensor at the base, and a novel reconstruction algorithm have been proposed for this purpose. Initially, the mathematical relationships between the deformations of the whisker and the F/M sensor outputs were used to reconstruct the shape of the whisker and the position of the touched object. The Cosserat rod theory was used under the assumption that only one contact point occurs during the exploration, and friction effects are negligible. A new methodology we called moment only reading (MOR) has been tested, verified, and compared with previous methods that employed Force and Moment Readings (FMR). Experimental investigations revealed that the spatial position estimation error of the MOR method was confined within 13 mm, when the force applied ranged between 0.001 and 0.01 N. Moreover, the comparison with FMR demonstrated that MOR is capable of retrieving the position of objects even when the force readings drop below the force resolution of the sensor. Eventually, the MOR method has been applied to demonstrate the localization and grasping, with a soft gripper, of delicate crops like tomatoes and strawberries.

Soft robotics for farm to fork: applications in agriculture & farming.

Agricultural tasks and environments range from harsh field conditions with semi-structured produce or animals, through to post-processing tasks in food-processing environments. From farm to fork, the development and application of soft robotics offers a plethora of potential uses. Robust yet compliant interactions between farm produce and machines will enable new capabilities and optimize existing processes. There is also an opportunity to explore how modeling tools used in soft robotics can be applied to improve our representation and understanding of the soft and compliant structures common in agriculture. In this review, we seek to highlight the potential for soft robotics technologies within the food system, and also the unique challenges that must be addressed when developing soft robotics systems for this problem domain. We conclude with an outlook on potential directions for meaningful and sustainable impact, and also how our outlook on both soft robotics and agriculture must evolve in order to achieve the required paradigm shift.

Locomotory behaviour of the intertidal marble crab (Pachygrapsus marmoratus) supports the underwater spring-loaded inverted pendulum as a fundamental model for punting in animals.

In aquatic pedestrian locomotion the dynamics of terrestrial and aquatic environments are coupled. Here we study terrestrial running and aquatic punting locomotion of the marine-living crab Pachygrapsus marmoratus. We detected both active and passive phases of running and punting through the observation of crab locomotory behaviour in standardized settings and by three-dimensional kinematic analysis of its dynamic gaits using high-speed video cameras. Variations in different stride parameters were studied and compared. The comparison was done based on the dimensionless parameter the Froude number (Fr) to account for the effect of buoyancy and size variability among the crabs. The underwater spring-loaded inverted pendulum (USLIP) model better fitted the dynamics of aquatic punting. USLIP takes account of the damping effect of the aquatic environment, a variable not considered by the spring-loaded inverted pendulum (SLIP) model in reduced gravity. Our results highlight the underlying principles of aquatic terrestrial locomotion by comparing it with terrestrial locomotion. Comparing punting with running, we show and increased stride period, decreased duty cycle and orientation of the carapace more inclined with the horizontal plane, indicating the significance of fluid forces on the dynamics due to the aquatic environment. Moreover, we discovered periodicity in punting locomotion of crabs and two different gaits, namely, long-flight punting and short-flight punting, distinguished by both footfall patterns and kinematic parameters. The generic fundamental model which belongs to all animals performing both terrestrial and aquatic legged locomotion has implications for control strategies, evolution and translation to robotic artefacts.

Morphological and control criteria for self-stable underwater hopping.

This paper presents the self-stabilisation features of a hopping gait during underwater legged locomotion. We used a bio-inspired fundamental model of this gait, the underwater spring-loaded inverted pendulum model, to numerically derive quantitative (dimension of the basin of attraction, Floquet multipliers, mean horizontal speed) and qualitative (shape of the basin) features which characterise the self-stability of the system. Furthermore, we compared the results obtained with a terrestrial self-stable running model (i.e. the spring-loaded inverted pendulum with swing-leg retraction) to highlight the role of water-related components in relation to dynamic legged locomotion. The analysis revealed fundamental morphological and actuation parameters that could be used to design self-stabilising underwater hopping machines, as well as elucidating their role with respect to stability and speed. Underwater hopping is a simple and reliable locomotion, as it does not require complex control feedback to reject significant disturbances. Thanks to its high self-stabilising property, underwater hopping appears to be a reliable alternative locomotion for underwater robots.

Voice quality monitoring: a portable device prototype.

This paper addresses the important issue of voice monitoring throughout the day under a clinical perspective. This problem is of great concern, for rehabilitation and from the assistive technology point of view. A prototype for a new portable device is proposed, implementing basic voice quality indexes (fundamental frequency F0, jitter, relative average perturbation RAP, noise) by means of robust high-resolution techniques. The device is contact-less, as the transducer is a small microphone included in the device. A feedback for patients outside the clinic is provided, given by a led/audio unit that advices the patient for any abnormal vocal emission, to help patients with carryover of therapy goals outside the clinical environment. The device will collect audio recordings to be submitted to a PC for further analysis, to be performed off-line. Such device for self-diagnosis and vocal rehabilitation could give a valid support, both to clinicians and patients.