Development Of An Underwater Robot For Marine Research

     The behavior of the marine life, marine environment and coastal areas are understood through marine research. Sea divers and sea explorers perform underwater research with limited access such as they are not allowed to dive for more than 130 feet and diving always entail some risk. Safety of divers must always be a priority so developing an underwater robot that can gather information for research will be very convenient

     Developed in this project was a wireless-controlled robot. Wireless communication specifically Wi-Fi function was used. The microcontroller used was the NodeMCU v3. since it has a built-in Wi-Fi function, making it easier for the researchers to integrate with the other components and desired output. It is a drone-like robot that can move forward, upward, downward, right and left with the help of propellers. The controls are maneuvered using the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) which is programmed using the MQTT Dashboard - an application that can be downloaded from the Google Play Store for Android users and an App Store for Apple users. To monitor underwater, a waterproof camera is attached to the body and the live video feed is sent to a different mobile application.

     To further improve this study, it is suggested: to develop an application for the transmitter, to add LEDs to provide sufficient lighting for the camera, and to control the speed of the robot.

     The robot is submersible that can descend to farther depths and can have a direct observation of the marine life and marine ecosystem underwater. However, due to the imperfect waterproofing, this robot was not tested in water to protect the electronic components inside the robot's body. Based on the testing results, this study concludes that the robot can move in different motions using Wi-Fi control underwater, robot, Wi-Fi, Arduino IDE, NodeMCU v3, MQTT.