An underwater robot operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has taken what is reportedly the first known automated sample from the ocean.

International researchers used a WHOI underwater robot called Nereid Under Ice (NUI) to explore Kolumbo volcano, an active volcano off Greece’s Santorini Island.

The NUI was equipped with artificial intelligence (AI)-based automated planning software and computer algorithms to allow the underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to select sites to visit in the volcano and to take samples autonomously.

“For a vehicle to take a sample without a pilot driving it was a huge step forward,” said Rich Camilli, an associate scientist at WHOI. “One of our goals was to toss out the joystick, and we were able to do just that.”

NUI is smaller than a smart car and was able to search for a patch of sediment from Kolumbo’s mineral rich seafloor. A researcher issued the command to the autonomous manipulator and a few moments later a slurp-sample hose attached to a robotic arm extended down to a sample location and sucked up the dirt.

WHOI said this type of automation is an important step for other organizations such as NASA that are looking to robots to explore other worlds beyond our solar system.

The next steps include training ocean robots to see like ROV pilots using “gaze tracking” technology as well as to build robust human-language interfaces so researchers can talk directly to robots without a pilot go-between.

“We can eventually see having a network of cognitive ocean robots where there’s a shared intelligence spanning an entire fleet, with each vehicle working cooperatively like bees in a hive,” Camilli said. “It will go well beyond losing the joystick.”

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