Redundancy resolution for underwater vehicle-manipulator systems using a fuzzy expert system

In this paper, the problem concerning how to coordinate the movement of an autonomous underwater vehicle-manipulator system (UVMS) is investigated. It is proposed an algorithm based in fuzzy logic that generates a desired trajectory for the vehicle taking into account three control objectives: the energy savings, the increase of system manipulability and utilization of all degrees of freedom (dof) when necessary. In this last, a particular rule disposition to distribute all dof's involved in task space is used. The simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of this approach.