Robotic Bubbles Will Explore the Ocean Depths

A Sensorbot developed by the Arizona State University Center for Biosignatures Discovery Automation for exploring the deepest part of the oceans.
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TINA CASEY

The sea could use a few more bubbles. Robotic ones. That’s at least the thinking of some folks at the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University, who have come up with a small, spherical robot that can travel underwater in packs numbering in the hundreds.

The “Sensorbots” would be used for exploring for life at deep-ocean thermal vents and they could also autonomously swarm around sudden events such as earthquakes.

Lead researcher Deirdre Meldrum of the school’s Center for Biosignatures Discovery has made a career of developing microscale technological systems for the health and biological sciences field, and her team cast a wide research net to develop the new submersible ‘bots.

The Center for Biosignatures Discovery includes experts in fields ranging from electrical and mechanical research to laboratory medicine, microbiology and cancer research, and it already has a track record in ocean exploration. In an article prepared by ASU, Meldrum explains:

“We are leveraging our automation, sensors, biotechnology, and systems expertise to develop unique robots that can be deployed by the hundreds, travel in formation, and communicate together for exploration and discovery. The Sensorbots will enable continuous spatiotemporal monitoring of key elements in the ocean and the ability to respond to events such as underwater earthquakes and hydrothermal vents. Such research is essential for a more thorough understanding of the multiple systems in the oceans – microbes and other sea life, geology, and chemicals.”

Sensorbots would use a “Morse code” type of communication, consisting of flashes of light, to transmit data including pH, temperature and oxygen. With further development, the devices could also perform analysis on living systems and conduct large-scale observations.

The Sensorbot project follows an important trend in robot technology, the development of robot swarms in which individual robots autonomously interact with each other. Intercommunicating swarms of small, relatively simple robots can potentially accomplish a task far more efficiently, and more cost-effectively, than a single large, complicated robotic device.

As an added advantage, a robot swarm mission could continue without interruption even if a few of the ‘bots malfunction.

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