Transforming Undersea Robot Could Help Explore Ocean Floor

The deep sea is an environment almost as inaccessible as space itself. But a new undersea robot named Aquanaut, recently unveiled by Houston Mechatronics and inspired by NASA robots, aims to change that.

The Aquanaut is designed to operate at deep sea levels, around 3,000 meters. It combines the functionality of two kinds of underwater robots: an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). While an AUV can navigate on its own while collecting data, it does so passively without being able to manipulate or respond to its environment. An ROV can manipulate objects and obey commands in real time, but needs to be tethered to a surface vessel.

Being able to transform from an AUV to an ROV when required enables the efficient collection of data over long distances (and at a lower cost than currently used technology) and helps overcome the limitations of those types of vehicles.

“Aquanaut was designed to operate over the horizon with onshore operator supervision,” said Nic Radford, CTO of Houston Mechatronics. “We have removed the need for onsite vessels (and people) from subsea work while still maintaining the operator’s situational awareness and the ability to modify missions.”

The company believes that this technology will make deep-sea exploration safer, more data-rich and more cost-efficient—and could take on military, commercial and scientific tasks. For the military, this would mean increasing standoff distance with an enemy, resulting in safer conditions. For commercial and scientific customers, the Aquanaut would deliver more comprehensive data analysis.

Aquanaut can trace its lineage to NASA’s space-faring Robonauts. In fact, Houston Mechatronics was started by a team roboticists from NASA’s Johnson Space Center — Radford was the chief engineer on the Robonaut project. The company is using its experience designing robots for NASA to develop cutting-edge vehicles to explore the mysteries of the deep sea.