AI-based control system for underwater robots developed by Chinese and British scientists.

British and Chinese researchers have developed a new deep learning method for autonomous mobile manipulators in unstructured environments, which could facilitate the autonomous operation of underwater robots.

Compared with traditional industrial robots in manufacturing, it is more challenging for an autonomous robot to work safely in dynamic and unstructured environments, such as vast space, open land and the deep sea. Robot autonomy in uncontrolled scenarios requires significantly extra capabilities, including perception, navigation, decision-making and manipulation (Illustration source: DARPA)

Researchers from the Shenyang Institute of Automation under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics in the UK have constructed a new deep-learning-based control system to achieve autonomous mobile manipulation in dynamic and unstructured environments. The system uses a deep learning method to perceive and understand the environment and targets through an on-board camera. Then, it uses the acquired information and the robot state to autonomously control the robot. Extensive simulation and experiment results show that the mobile manipulation system can grasp different types of objects autonomously in various simulations and real-world scenarios.

This research paves the way for the autonomous operation of complex underwater robot systems, according to the team. The research was published in the journal Sensors.