Development of a robust autonomous Underwater Robotic Vehicle (URV) is a key element to the exploitation of marine resources. An accurate dynamic model is important for both controller design and mission simulation, regardless of the control strategy employed. This work develops a closed form (non-recursive) dynamic model for an underwater vehicle with an n-axis robot arm using Kane's method. The utility of the closed form dynamic model is that the structure of the dynamic system can be incorporated into the control law. A nonlinear feedback model-based control law is proposed for coordinated control of the URV and manipulator arm. Simulation results for a vehicle with a three link manipulator arm indicate that a model-based control law has the potential to provide superior performance over other controllers which neglect unmodelled forces.
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