Miniature Robots to Swarm the Oceans

Futuristic tools or ideas from a few years ago are now quickly becoming a real invention in the modern world today. There are robots (of course) that search and swarm the oceans to help scientists gather pictures, videos, data, define localized currents, temperature, salinity and countless of information about pressure and biological properties. Also, these AUE's (autonomous underwater explorers) are pint-sized robots are deployed into the depths of the sea. In addition, researcher Peter Franks mentioned that "AUEs should improve ocean models and allow us to do a better job following 'the weather and climate of the ocean, 'as well as help us understand things like carbon fluxes." In my opinion, this is an excellent to the next generation of technology, however there's an important factor/number to these solutions, money. $2.5 million is being funded the National Science Foundation. Furthermore, this "bot" swarms around the ocean to obtain important information, while monitoring oil spills and recognizing strong waves/currents around the ocean. AUEs can not only be something for just science, but could also detect an airplane crash in the sea (water currents that come from the wreckage); this is a tremendous example for safety in the deep waters. To summarize, this is the next generation of technology; AEUs. These incredible robots swarrm through oceans to gather data for scientists, possibly detect accidents in the sea or even provide habitat protection.

Date of Article: November 10, 2009
Article Source: http://www.livescience.com/environment/091110-ocean-robot-swarm.html