Oceanic explorer robot managed to descend almost a kilometer deep

For centuries knowing what was hidden in the depths of the sea was one of the mysteries that dominated the mind of man, especially during the time when ships began to sail the seas to cross from one continent to another.

With the passage of time, technological advances allowed to gradually unravel much of what was hidden under the waters, to the point of reaching depths where no life was thought to exist.

Recently, a news story was released regarding underwater exploration, where a team of researchers from the Robotics Laboratory of Stanford University was successful after the test carried out with a underwater robot named OceanOneK.

Regarding its design, this robot was endowed with a touch, vision and interactivity that replicate those of the human being, which allowed him to be able to explore a shipwreck located hundreds of meters under the ocean.

When talking about the structure of OceanOneK, it has a humanoid upper half and one half slimmer rearalso equipped with 8 multidirectional thrusters that make possible its maneuverability under water.

Also, the technology of haptic feedback and the stereoscopic vision present in the robot give it the possibility of generate sensations highly realistic for remote users making them feel like they are immersed in exploring the site.

In this regard, the Weichai professor in the School of Engineering and director of the Stanford Robotics Laboratory, Khatib expressed:

You get very close to this incredible structure, and when you touch it something incredible happens: You really feel it. […] I had never experienced anything like this in my life. I can say that it was I who touched the Crispi at 500 m. And I did: I touched it, I felt it.

Thus, OceanOneK is an initiative whose purpose is explore unknown places in the depths and at the same time demonstrate the possibility that exists of making people, from a remote place, feel this experience as if they were there.

And while OceanOneK has managed to complete many voyages across the Mediterranean, its most important milestone was reached recently by being able to descend autonomously to a depth almost a thousand meters.

To do this, the team had already been preparing the robot since February when it dived into the wreck of the sunken Italian steamship Le Francesco Crispi; this as part of the multi-stop Mediterranean tour.

Prior to this dive, OceanOneK had already descended to a aircraft P-30 Lightning of the Second World War in the vicinity of Marseilles, and then to a submarine named Le Protect located at a depth of 124 meters.

This was followed by immersion to a Roman ship of the 2nd century in Corsica, where it reached a depth of 334 meters.

After all this, the OceanOneK was taken to Cannes to carry out the exploration towards a Beechcraft Baron F-GDPV located to 67 meters deep. So all these dives made it possible for the robot eventually to reach a depth of 852 meters.