Page 10: of Marine Technology Magazine (January 2020)

Tech Files

Innovative products, technologies and concepts

WHOI Robot Takes First Known Automated Sample from Ocean

A hybrid remotely operated vehicle expedition aimed at learning about life mand to the autonomous manipulator developed by Woods Hole Oceano- in the harsh, chemical-laden environ- and, moments later, a slurp-sample graphic Institution (WHOI) took the ment of Kolumbo, and also exploring hose attached to the robotic arm ex- ? rst known automated sample per- the extent to which scientists can hand tended down to the precise sample formed by a robotic arm in the ocean. over the controls to ocean robots and location and sucked up the dirt.

Last month, an international team allow them to ex- Moving forward, of researchers used one of WHOI’s plore without human Camilli will continue “One of our goals underwater robots, Nereid Under Ice intervention. working with Bill- (NUI), to explore Kolumbo volcano, an Slightly smaller ings and colleagues, was to toss out the active submarine volcano off Greece’s than a Smart Car, as well as research-

Santorini island. NUI was equipped ers from the Austra- joystick, and we “For a vehicle to take a sample with Arti? cial Intel- lian Center for Field without a pilot driving it was a huge ligence (AI)-based Robotics, Massa- were able to do step forward,” says Rich Camilli, an automated planning chusetts Institute of just that.” associate scientist at WHOI leading the software — includ- Technology, and the development of automation technology ing a planner named Toyota Technologi- as part of NASA’s Planetary Science ‘Spock’ — that cal Institute at Chi- and Technology from Analog Research enabled the ROV to decide which sites cago to push the automation technology (PSTAR) interdisciplinary research to visit in the volcano and take samples forward. The work will include training program. “One of our goals was to toss autonomously. Gideon Billings, a guest ocean robots to see like ROV pilots out the joystick, and we were able to do student whose thesis research focuses using “gaze tracking” technology, and just that.” on automated technologies, had the building a robust human-language in-

As with self-driving cars, handing the honors of using his code to collect the terface so scientists can talk directly to wheel over to a computer algorithm can very ? rst automated sample, which was robots without a pilot go-between.

be unsettling. Camilli was part of an of a patch of sediment from Kolumbo’s international team of researchers on an mineral-rich sea? oor. He issued a com- Source: WHOI

NUI is lowered into the Aege- an Sea before plunging to a depth of 500 meters to ex- plore Kolumbo volcano.

Photo by Evan Lubofsky, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution January/February 2020 10

MTR

MTR #1 (1-17).indd 10 1/16/2020 11:07:33 AM