Résumé
Today, underwater robotics allows access to deep water wreck sites for analysis and, sometimes, for their exhaustive study.If we want to achieve this, we have to do better than operating light touches on the upper archaeological layer, or just picking up an isolated artefact as the only evidence of a cargo. Indeed, it is important to consider the exhaustive study of these wrecks that are so rich in information for archaeologists.However, the issues of remote artefact on deep wrecks are far from being resolved. During the last five years, the DRASSM performed a large amount of tests in order to elaborate robotic devices able to remotely mimic the gesture of an archaeologist and then, give way to the whole study of abyssal shipwrecks. On this experimental basis, in 2015, the ANR SeaHand Project was born, involving the DRASSM, the P' Institute (CNRS), the Montpellier Laboratory of Informatics, Robotics and Microelectronics (LIRMM, University of Montpellier) and industrial partners. The SeaHand project aims at developing an haptically controlled underwater robotic hand designed to perform archaeological works in deep water. “Haptically” means that this hand provides the pilot with the sense of touch, allowing the handling of fragile artefacts.This paper is about the technologies that we used and their results in our most recent works.