| Unmanned Marine Vehicles (UMV) are being used more widely. Among other things, they are used for ocean research and surveillance. The operational costs for support vessels to maintain a UMV are ever increasing and it is desirable to decrease the manpower and time needed to deploy and retrieve them. The ability to make a mechanical connection to the UMV without a requirement for a diver or smaller support vessel would allow faster retrieval and use less manpower. A number of handling systems have been used in the past that include crane, stem ramp, side mounted cradle, stern cradle and docking garage. The crane is the most versatile in that it is capable of side or stern handling on a specially designed or retrofitted support vessel.; To facilitate a rapid mechanical connection to the UMV, this thesis proposes mounting a delta robot at the end of a crane and have the robot make the connection automatically. To demonstrate the feasibility of this, a system was constructed that successfully captured a test UMV. The system consists of a camera and capture mechanism, mounted as the end effector of a delta robot, and a control computer. The camera provides the location of the UMV with respect to the delta robot. With this information, the PC, running the control program, positions the camera (and capture mechanism) over the UMV. The height of the wave crests is determined by following the UMV for a period of time. After determining the wave crest height the connection is made at the next crest and the UMV is lifted out of the water. |
