The team behind Chalawan (from left): Dr. Manukid Parnichkun, Theerayuth Chatchanayuenyong, and Paradin Juntakhet.
AIT Develops Chalawan
Chalawan, a first generation autonomous underwater robot is being developed at AIT by Theerayuth Chatchanayuenyong, doctoral student in SAT's Mechatronics field of study, and Paradin Juntakhet, a Research Assistant in SAT. The project is under the supervision of Dr. Manukid Parnichkun.
The robot is named after a famous legendary Thai crocodile, Chalawan. Dr. Manukid explained the background to the project: 'Chalawan is a one-year project supported by the Royal Thai Government's Joint Research Project. About 75% of the work has been done, and we expect to complete it within six months. By then, the robot will be utilized in actual situations.'
At work: Theerayuth Chatchanayuenyong (left) and Paradin Juntakhet carefully check the parts.
Underwater robots can be utilized for scientific study and environmental surveys as well as ocean exploration and mining, and construction and maintenance of undersea structures. For scientific study, underwater robots can do seafloor mapping, rapid response to oceanographic and geothermal events, and geological sampling. For environmental surveys, the robots can perform long-term monitoring of events such as hydrocarbon spills or radiation leakage. They can be used for military purposes such as shallow water mine searching and disposal, and submarine off-board sensoring. Other applications include the inspection of ships' hulls, nuclear power plant inspection, underwater communication and power cables installation and inspection, entertainment-underwater tours, and fisheries-underwater ranger.
AIT carries another joint project with Mahidol University, supported by NSTDA for developing a robot for the South Pole Survey Project in which AIT will provide technical assistances to Mahidol to develop an underwater robot.