Advances in robotics for deep-sea exploration

DeepStalk’s compact, soft-body design, inspired by sea snails, eliminates the need for bulky pressure vessels, improving efficiency and reducing costs for deep-sea missions.

Multibeam sonar, used by robots like Sentry, creates detailed bathymetric maps of the seafloor, essential for navigation and scientific study.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) partnered with NASA’s JPL to design Orpheus, a lightweight AUV for mapping the hadal zone at depths beyond 6,000 meters.

SoFi, a soft robotic fish, mimics real fish to observe marine life without disturbance, allowing nonintrusive monitoring of delicate ecosystems.

A fish-like soft robot developed by Zhejiang University, with wing-like fins, was tested in the Mariana Trench in 2020, demonstrating resilience at nearly 11,000 meters.

Soft materials, like silicone-based elastomers, protect electronics in robots like DeepStalk, enabling them to withstand high pressures while remaining lightweight and flexible.

OceanOneK, a humanoid robot developed by Stanford, uses advanced haptic feedback and stereoscopic vision for tasks like exploring shipwrecks at depths up to 1,000 meters.

Visual-inertial odometry (xVIO) uses cameras and pattern-matching software to identify seafloor features, enabling robots like Orpheus to navigate and map extreme depths.

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) operate independently without tethers, using onboard computers and sensors for navigation and data collection, unlike tethered ROVs.

Soft robots, inspired by pressure-adaptive deep-sea creatures like snailfish, use flexible materials to operate without bulky pressure vessels, as seen in robots like DeepStalk, tested in the Mariana Trench.