A modular miniature underwater robot design scheme for swarm operations

This paper presents a modular design scheme for miniature underwater robot used for swarm operations. Both the hardware circuit and the software structure are introduced. In this design, miniature underwater robots are composed of two kinds of modules, namely a core controller and a set of functional modules. The core controller is in charge of running the software that control the robot, while a functional module is an integration of both the hardware circuit and software to perform certain function. General connectors are used to connect a set of functional modules to the core controller, which accelerates the process of robot development. With this design scheme, two kinds of miniature underwater robots named Horseshoe Crab I and Horseshoe Crab II are developed for swarm operations, showing that this scheme can help develop miniature robot in short time and at low cost.