A classic in underwater robotics. One of the first volumes in the “Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics” series, it has been a bestseller through the previous three editions. Fifteen years after the publication of the first edition, the fourth edition comes to print. The book addresses the main control aspects in underwater manipulation tasks. With respect to the third edition, it has been revised, extended and some concepts better clustered. The mathematical model with significant impact on the control strategy is discussed. The problem of controlling a 6-degrees-of-freedoms autonomous underwater vehicle is investigated and a survey of fault detection/tolerant strategies for unmanned underwater vehicles is provided. Inverse kinematics, dynamic and interaction control for underwater vehicle-manipulator systems are then discussed. The code used to generate most of the numerical simulations is made available and briefly discussed.

The United States faces decisions requiring information about the oceans in vastly expanded scales of time and space and from oceanic sectors not accessible with the suite of tools now used by scientists and engineers. Advances in guidance and control, communications, sensors, and other technologies for undersea vehicles can provide an opportunity to understand the oceans' influence on the energy and chemical balance that sustains humankind and to manage and deliver resources from and beneath the sea. This book assesses the state of undersea vehicle technology and opportunities for vehicle applications in science and industry. It provides guidance about vehicle subsystem development priorities and describes how national research can be focused most effectively.

The oceans are a hostile environment, and gathering information on deep-sea life and the seabed is incredibly difficult. Autonomous underwater vehicles are robot submarines that are revolutionizing the way in which researchers and industry obtain data. Advances in technology have resulted in capable vehicles that have made new discoveries on how th