This paper studies control properties of the dynamics of underactuated vehicles (e.g. underactuated surface vessels, underwater vehicles, aeroplanes or spacecraft). The unactuated dynamics implies constraints on the accelerations. Both the necessary and suucient conditions for these constraints to be second-order nonholonomic, rst-order nonholonomic or holonomic are developed. It is shown that ...

Exploration of the underwater environment either by human operated or by autonomous vehicles can highly benefit from using a visual imaging system. When a vision system for an underwater vehicle has to be designed, some specific characteristics of the image formation in sub-sea conditions should be taken into account. This paper presents an extensive survey of components, techniques and methods...

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) have widely deployed in marine investigation and ocean exploration in recent years. As the fundamental information, their position information is not only for data validity but also for many real-world applications. Therefore, it is critical for the AUV to have the underwater localization capability. This report is mainly devoted to outline the recent advan...

Bio-inspired vehicles are currently leading the way in the quest to produce a vehicle capable of flight and underwater navigation. However, a fully functional vehicle has not yet been realized. We present the first fully functional vehicle platform operating in air and underwater with seamless transition between both mediums. These unique capabilities combined with the hovering, high maneuverab...