Diving robots 'self-planning experiments'

US scientists are using a diving device capable of 'manually establishing experiments' on the seafloor. Gulper AUV is programmed to find information scientists want and plan for themselves, avoiding water currents and dangerous hindrances.

Equipment to dive away, return and downloaded data - Photo: BBC

At the Ocean Science Conference in Portland, the team explained how to 'train' the robots themselves to bring the best research results to the surface. Thom Maughan of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in California, one of the project's engineers - said Gulper AUV uses T rex software, similar to NASA's Mars rover program. to avoid obstacles on the surface of the red planet.

The main difference between the two software is that for self-propelled vehicles on Mars, the software operates at the control center on Earth. With diving equipment, the software works on the device itself. 'You can tell it what it's supposed to do before putting it in water,' said Dr. Maughan. 'We told him, ' These are the tasks we want you to do, ' and it comes and goes. Evaluate what is going on in the ocean, decide for yourself how long it will take to get the data we want. 'Researchers at MBARI use Gulper AUV to control seaweed flowers. harm.

Kim Fulton - Bennett of MBARI explained , "Every few weeks we used to go onboard for a day to use our hands to make measurements. Now we just take Gulper AUV outside the port and let it dive and move on its own. About 24 hours later it returned, we pulled onto the deck and loaded the data down . '