Design of an electric tool for underwater archaeological restoration based on a user centred approach

This paper describes a part of the contribution of the CoMAS project ("In situ conservation planning of Underwater Archaeological Artifacts"), funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR), and run by a partnership of private companies and public research centers. The CoMAS project aims at the development of new materials, techniques and tools for the documentation, conservation and restoration of underwater archaeological sites in their natural environment. This paper details the results achieved during the project in the development of an innovative electric tool, which can efficiently support the restorers' work in their activities aimed to preserve the undervater cultural heritage in its original location on the seafloor. In particular, the paper describes the different steps to develop an underwater electric cleaning brush, which is able to per-fonn a first rough cleaning of the submerged archaeological structures by removing the loose deposits and the various marine organisms that reside on their surface. The peculiarity of this work consists in a user centred design approach that tries to overcome the lack of detailed users' requirements and the lack of norms and guidelines for the ergonomic assessment of such kind of underwater tools. The proposed approach makes a wide use of additive manufacturing techniques for the realization and modification of prototypes to be employed for in situ experimentation conducted with the final users. The user tests have been addressed to collect data for supporting the iterative development of the prototype.