Executive Summary : | Generation of power in a power plant, be it fossil fuel or nuclear, relies heavily on the water to remove the excess heat from the power generation cycle. However, due to long operational periods, these pipelines experience huge biological growth. Therefore, this proposal aims to develop a hybrid underwater vehicle manipulator (HUVM) system which can operate in both autonomous and remotely operated mode. The tether management in an underwater situation is difficult but from safety point of view, the initial operations must be remotely operated and therefore the hybrid vehicle is apt for this situation. The HUVM also carries a rotary blade to cut down the bio-fouling and to remove them/any other obstacle, a two-link manipulator has been attached. The cutting operation can be intense for huge biological growth. For this reason, two leg has been conceptualised and attached to the HUVM which holds the HUVM at a particular position on the pipeline and provides necessary stability to the overall system. However, during manoeuvring the legs are retracted towards the body. The complicated nature of the project demands a higher level of control architecture and data driven controllers are perfectly suitable in this aspect. So, a data driven controller for manoeuvring along with obstacle avoidance and disturbance rejection features will be implemented in this project. |