Deep Diving Robots

For years, autonomous underwater robots have been used to search the ocean floor for rare-earth metals and other resources because they can go where humans never could. Now, the same company that has developed some of the most sophisticated marine robots in the world – including the first to reach the deepest recesses of the Mariana Trench – is developing a new technology to allow deployment of multiple robots at the same time.

Using the new collision-avoidance system, for example, a five square kilometer area could be surveyed in a single day, making undersea exploration more productive and cost effective.