Page 30: of Marine Technology Magazine (September 2018)

Seafloor Crawlers

New Robotic Tools for Challenging Missions

BY JUSTIN E. MANLEY, JUST INNOVATION, INC. AND ARNIS MANGOLDS, C-2 INNOVATIONS, INC.

Back to the sea a productive tool. This has changed.

It is widely said that life started in the ocean, and gradually moved on to land. In the case of tracked robots this trend is re- Through the surf versed. During the early 2000s, driven by signi? cant defense Today C-2 Innovations, Inc., (C2I) has developed a family demands, compact ground robots developed rapidly. Products of capable, production ready, sea? oor crawling robots to take like the PackBot from iRobot and the Talon from Foster-Mill- users back through the surf zone and into the sea. This family er pioneered man-portable high performance ground robots. includes the compact Sea Otter and more sizeable Sea Ox.

The demands of operating in harsh environments made these The Sea Otter Surf Zone Crawler (SZC), Figure 1, is a sec- tools robust and inspired fully waterproof variants. Unfortu- ond generation fully autonomous amphibious bottom crawler nately at the time limitations in energy storage, autonomy and capable of operating at depths to 100-m through high water telemetry made sea? oor crawling robots a novelty rather than current regimes and onto land. Without a tether the system

Figure 1: The Sea Otter Surf Zone Crawler

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