Robots traveling on muddy terrain for sampling bottom sediment in tidal flats

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to develop robots that perform mud sampling on tidal flats automatically. Erosions that occur on beaches and sands go away to offshore caused by waves, winds and so on. In addition, the phenomena have not been clarified. Thus, a mathematical model has been proposed to analyze the phenomena. Then, parameters in the model are required to be identified by collecting bottom sediments. Now, the collections of bottom sediments are achieved with manpower. However, surfaces of tidal flats are of mud and hard to walk on. In this paper, a robot for collecting bottom sediments on tidal flats is proposed. During traveling on muddy terrains, the robot has to avoid obstacles, i.e., wastes, driftwoods and so on. Then, the SSD (single shot multibox detector) was used to detect objects with image recognition. Fundamental experiments were performed in our laboratory and it was shown that the developed robot could perform the fundamental desired tasks.