are everywhere it seems these days. We have robots in space. We have them help us around our house, in , and assembly lines. Even our oceans are populated with a small minority of research robots. It seems we can’t escape these, (to quote DR. Smith from Lost in Space), “cantankerous, cold-hearted clods!” Actually robots are making life easier for us in many ways including the way we study marine biology.
Engineers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute have designed a new autonomous underwater vehicle for long term marine study. Scientists typically have two kinds of AUV’s to help and gather data on our oceans. The first is a propeller-driven type that has a faster rate of travel and can carry a lot of instruments; however they can only remain at sea for a few days. The second types are of a ‘glider’ configuration. They can stay at sea for a longer period of time but have a relatively slow speed. That’s where MBARI’s Tethys comes in. Their AUV, designed by Chief Technologist Jim Bellingham, combines the two to create a hybrid of sorts with an ability to make its own decisions. During a CANON experiment it was programmed to follow algae blooms and gather data on the blooms horizontal and vertical ranges to which it had to chart its own route and compensate for tidal movements.
"We found that controlling the vehicle from shore via satellite was just too cumbersome. By the time the vehicle had seen a promising patch, reported it to us, and we had sent the vehicle back toward the center of the patch, the patch had moved. Also, controlling the robot 24/7 was very tiring for the human operators. We suspected, and now we know, that the long-term success of such research depends on the vehicle being able to carry all this out on its own." said Bellingham. Tethys also has some of the same power saving technologies that our computer have, such as monitoring what systems are in use and turning off the ones that are not running. Tethys isn’t a standalone robot however; it is designed to run in ‘robot packs’ much like wolves circling their prey. For example, when one AUV studies and algae bloom from the inside another can collect data on the outside such as how the algae’s shape transforms over time.
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