Design And Development Of Hybrid Underwater Vehicle And Microscope For In Situ Observation

This thesis is about Ocean Strider;an Underwater Hybrid Vehicle that is modified with hybrid(manual and autonomous)control system.The aims concerning this Underwater Hybrid Vehicle are to be competent to operate underwater by using remote control via operator and seek out the user interested objects.Autonomously control system visually follows and manages a secured position comparable to a motionless target and avoids the hindrances for reliable navigation by using ultrasonic sensor.Vision is a fundamental root that promotes the underwater robot to execute various tasks autonomously.Ocean Strider is an intelligent vehicle to explicitly identify,locate and respond perfectly by specifying from distinct color codes and dimension of the objects.Multiple experiments have been conducted in the laboratory to understand manual system and autonomous control system which includes grasping,location and traveling pattern with respect to objects.Additionally,we have also developed underwater microscope for in situ observation.It is a system for monitoring the ecology and physiology of corals,sediments,planktons and microplastic at a suitable-spatial resolution since desirable in oceanic scientific research at specific magnifications.To deal with that requirement,we have designed a submersible microscope with an integrated electrically controlled variable objective lens,which is unique in this approach.Images captured by designed underwater microscope of corals,sediments,planktons and microplastic reveal the physical,biological and morphological characteristics of it.Further studies of images also disclose the growth,degradation and bleaching patterns of corals.The major issues charged for their potential impact on imaging performance includes the choice of lenses,camera selection and lighting method.Image de-hazing,global saturation masks and image histograms were used to extract image features.Fundamental experiment proof is procured with micro scale images of both corals,sediments,planktons and microplastic at different magnifications.Overall Ocean Strider and designed underwater microscope can explore objects inside the aquatic ecosystem and provide important new insights into observation,detection and future condition of benthic aquatic ecosystems respectively.