To address the inherent trade-off between large-scale exploration and high-precision manipulation in existing underwater vehicles, a novel morphable underwater intervention robot is developed. Designed for operations at depths of up to 1000 m, the robot integrates low-drag cruising with dual-arm collaborative capabilities, meeting the stringent inspection and maintenance requirements of offshore wind farms and subsea oil and gas platforms.

The overall design specifications were first established, followed by the optimization of the integrated design workflow. The configuration of the robot's pressure-resistant hulls and equipment layout were finalized, with the development of key components, including the morphing mechanism (lead screw lifting mechanism) and pressure-resistant hulls. Strength verification of key components was performed using finite element analysis (FEA) under a 12 MPa hydrostatic load, simulating a depth of 1000 m. Subsequently, the endurance and maneuverability during cruising mode, as well as the manipulator workspace and stability during manipulating mode, were systematically evaluated. Finally, hydrodynamic drag characteristics were verified through CFD simulations, and a coupled vehicle-manipulator dynamic model was developed in Matlab to validate the robot's self-recovery, disturbance rejection, and coupling suppression performance.

The results indicate that the internal layout is rational, with critical components meeting the operational requirements for 1000 m deep-sea environments. The maximum stress within the pressure hulls remains below the yield strength of the selected materials. In cruising mode, the robot achieves a maximum endurance of 7 h, and the configured propulsion system ensures high underwater maneuverability. At a cruise speed of 6 kn, the longitudinal drag is recorded at only 725.06 N, significantly lower than that in manipulating mode, demonstrating superior low-drag characteristics. In manipulating mode, the central buoyancy module is raised by 270 mm, increasing the vertical distance between the center of gravity and the center of buoyancy by 0.054 m. As a result, the maximum restoring moment increases by 202.1% compared to cruising mode, significantly enhancing operational stability. The heeling self-recovery time is reduced from 180 s to 60 s, alongside improved anti-disturbance capabilities. Furthermore, the dual-arm workspace effectively covers the lateral, forward, and downward regions of the vehicle, ensuring an efficient and collaborative operational envelope.

By utilizing autonomous configuration switching, an overall design scheme for a morphable underwater intervention robot with multi-task execution capability was proposed. This design effectively combines low-resistance detection in cruising mode with high-stability operation in manipulating mode, offering an innovative solution for underwater operations in complex deep-sea scenarios.

This paper proposes a multi-source observation-based recovery bucket guidance docking strategy for the reliable recovery observation and motion goal tracking of unmanned surface vessels (USVs).

During the entire docking process, the interference zone of the mother ship's wake is first avoided in order to complete the rough alignment of the USV route; the heading tracking guidance line is then maintained to prepare for terminal docking recovery adjustments; finally, the data obtained by the visual sensor and inertial navigation sensor is filtered and fused to calculate the recovery guidance line, which is then transmitted to the USV. The USV completes the tracking of the terminal guidance line and docking recovery task through its own guidance and control systems. A USV docking recovery system is simultaneously designed on the basis of visual and integrated navigation fusion, the hardware and software of the real boat is independently designed, and lake field tests are conducted to verify the feasibility of the system design and docking strategy.

The experimental results show that the success rate of the USV in performing autonomous docking tasks reaches 91.6%. The proposed docking strategy can meet the high-precision docking and recovery requirements of USVs.

The findings of this study can provide critical technical support for USV recovery operations.

This paper aims to propose a type of structural verification software for inland ships with embedded specifications, addressing the problem of low calculation efficiency and difficult model reuse in performing manual checking and calculation.

The software is constructted based on the model-view-controller (MVC) framework, with the hull model as the center and the development of core functional modules such as the structural database, section visualization and specification calculation. A hierarchical model of the structure is designed for parameter management and sharing; the model is abstracted to express special structures and decouple from the specifications; and derivation technology is integrated to facilitate software update and model reuse.

The calculation example shows that this verification software based on the abstraction of structural parameters can ensure the integrity and accuracy of specification calculation, and realize the complete compatibility and combination verification of various inland ship types and specifications, with an error rate of just 0.1% against the manual calculation results.

The proposed software breaks through the limitations of different ship types and specifications, realizes intelligent and dynamic structural verification, and reduces the dependence of users on complicated rules and regulations. As such, it can significantly improve the quality and efficiency of design and planning approval work. Compared with other standard structural checking software, this software has the advantages of accurate calculation and rapid modeling.

To ensure safety and prevent seabed collisions in complex unknown underwater environments, this study proposes a seabed safety domain model and tiered emergency response strategies.

A vertical motion simulation model is established and verified by surpassing the test results, then used to calculate the active and passive safety domain distance of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), thereby establishing a seabed safety domain model. An AUV emergency control system and emergency strategies are then built on the basis of the dynamic safety domain model. The trim and distance from the seabed of the AUV are used to calculate the current and future risk factors. Based on the weighted sum, the comprehensive risk factor is employed to provide the AUV with emergency response strategies.

Lake tests with the AUV sailing at a fixed depth and height show a strong dependency of the comprehensive risk coefficient on seabed height when it is close to the boundary of the AUV's active safety domain. In the opposite case, there is a weak dependency of the comprehensive risk coefficient on seabed height. The results show that the proposed AUV emergency control system can reduce emergency false alarms caused by frequently changing riverbed heights and sailing altitudes close to the seabed. In such cases, reasonable emergency strategies can be realized under complex rough terrain.

The AUV seabed safety domain model and tiered emergency response strategies based on vertical motion equations proposed herein can be applied to evaluate seabed collision risk in various cases. Finally, this paper provides emergency response strategies to avoid seabed collision accidents, which can enhance the safety of AUV navigation.

To deal with the external time-variance disturbances and possible failure of actuators during the dynamic positioning operation of an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV), this paper proposes a nonlinear observer-based adaptive allocation strategy to achieve thruster fault tolerance.

The control scheme is first established by means of the power sliding mode control technique to obtain the dynamic position. Meanwhile, a nonlinear disturbance observer is designed to estimate external disturbances. Then, based on the estimated external disturbance and state deviation sequence under the failure mode, a quadratic programming problem is constructed and solved to obtain the efficiency factor of each thruster, and the thrust distribution matrix is modified to achieve adaptive control allocation under thruster fault tolerance.

The simulation results show that the UUV control system can effectively estimate external environmental disturbances and the efficiency factor of each thruster. Even if the actuator fails, the UUV can still accomplish its dynamic positioning mission.

The results of this study show that the proposed adaptive thruster allocation and sliding mode control algorithm is reasonable and can be effectively applied to UUVs under external environmental disturbances and actuator failure.