A model of a screwless underwater robot

The paper is devoted to the development of a model of an underwater robot actuated by inner rotors. This design has no moving elements interacting with an environment, which minimizes a negative impact on it, and increases noiselessness of the robot motion in a liquid. Despite numerous discussions on the possibility and efficiency of motion by means of internal masses' movement, a large number of works published in recent years confirms a relevance of the research. The paper presents an overview of works aimed at studying the motion by moving internal masses. A design of a screwless underwater robot that moves by the rotation of inner rotors to conduct theoretical and experimental investigations is proposed. In the context of theoretical research a robot model is considered as a hollow ellipsoid with three rotors located inside so that the axes of their rotation are mutually orthogonal. For the proposed model of a screwless underwater robot equations of motion in the form of classical Kirchhoff equations are obtained.