{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,17]],"date-time":"2026-05-17T07:13:30Z","timestamp":1779002010327,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":45,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,4,28]],"date-time":"2022-04-28T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1651104000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"LabEx NUMEV","award":["ANR-10-LABX-0020"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["ANR-10-LABX-0020"]}]},{"name":"LabEx NUMEV","award":["ANR-16-IDEX-0006"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["ANR-16-IDEX-0006"]}]},{"name":"I-SITE MUSE","award":["ANR-10-LABX-0020"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["ANR-10-LABX-0020"]}]},{"name":"I-SITE MUSE","award":["ANR-16-IDEX-0006"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["ANR-16-IDEX-0006"]}]},{"name":"Region Occitanie (french FEDER funds)","award":["ANR-10-LABX-0020"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["ANR-10-LABX-0020"]}]},{"name":"Region Occitanie (french FEDER funds)","award":["ANR-16-IDEX-0006"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["ANR-16-IDEX-0006"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>This paper presents the design and experiment of an autonomous underwater robot which can change the geometric configuration of its actuators, according to mission requirements or environmental constraints. The robot consists of two subsystems: forward part with three thrusters and backward part with four thrusters. The position and orientation of these thrusters can be dynamically changed during missions. Being different from most of other reconfigurable underwater robots which were designed as linked-modules, our robot has a unified design. It is suitable for specific mission in confined environments (e.g., karst exploration) in which the robot has to modify its shape to go through a narrow section or align the most part of its thrusters in the direction of a strong current, for examples. The design procedure, from hardware to software, of the robot is presented and experimental results are shown to demonstrate the versatility of the robot. Furthermore, the discussion and comparison between our robot and other underwater robots with adaptable actuation geometry are presented to highlight advantages of our design. Finally, the idea of using our robot for classic docking problem, which has some common features with karst exploration requirements in using dynamically reconfigurable robots, is discussed.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s22093379","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,4,28]],"date-time":"2022-04-28T22:20:06Z","timestamp":1651184406000},"page":"3379","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":8,"title":["A Dynamically Reconfigurable Autonomous Underwater Robot for Karst Exploration: Design and Experiment"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"22","author":[{"given":"Tho","family":"Dang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory of Informatics, Robotics and MicroElectronics (LIRMM) (UMR 5506 CNRS-UM), Universit\u00e9 Montpellier, 161 rue Ada, CEDEX 5, 34392 Montpellier, France"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4320-2118","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Lionel","family":"Lapierre","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory of Informatics, Robotics and MicroElectronics (LIRMM) (UMR 5506 CNRS-UM), Universit\u00e9 Montpellier, 161 rue Ada, CEDEX 5, 34392 Montpellier, France"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Rene","family":"Zapata","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory of Informatics, Robotics and MicroElectronics (LIRMM) (UMR 5506 CNRS-UM), Universit\u00e9 Montpellier, 161 rue Ada, CEDEX 5, 34392 Montpellier, France"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Benoit","family":"Ropars","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Reeds Company, 199 rue H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Boucher, 34170 Castelnau-Le-Lez, France"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Guillaume","family":"Gourmelen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Laboratory of Informatics, Robotics and MicroElectronics (LIRMM) (UMR 5506 CNRS-UM), Universit\u00e9 Montpellier, 161 rue Ada, CEDEX 5, 34392 Montpellier, France"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,4,28]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"725","DOI":"10.1007\/s00254-006-0386-y","article-title":"Dynamics and contribution of karst groundwater to surface flow during Mediterranean flood","volume":"51","author":"Jourde","year":"2007","journal-title":"Environ. 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