Towards the development of a multipurpose tool for underwater manipulation

Every year, the use of underwater vehicles equipped with underwater manipulator arms is becoming more popular in order to perform activities that are dangerous for divers. However, for the field of marine sciences, many of the manipulator arms that currently exist are heavy, expensive and not exactly good for the tasks required by marine biologists. This paper presents a first approach towards the development of a multipurpose, modular and low-cost tool that focuses on solving the problem of collecting samples of marine organisms using underwater vehicles.