Humanoid Robotic Diver Recovers Treasures from Abandoned Shipwreck
The concept for Stanford University's humanoid robotic diver called OceanOne was born from the need to study coral reefs deep in the Red Sea, far below the comfortable range of human divers. No existing robotic submarine can dive with the skill and care of a human diver, so OceanOne was conceived and built from the ground up, combining robotics, artificial intelligence, and haptic feedback systems. Roughly five feet long from end to end, its torso features a head with stereoscopic vision that shows the pilot exactly what the robot sees, and two fully articulated arms. The 'tail' section houses batteries, computers, and eight multi-directional thrusters. Each fully articulated wrist is fitted with force sensors that relay haptic feedback to the pilot's controls, so the human can feel whether the robot is grasping something firm and heavy, or light and delicate. Eventually, each finger will be covered with tactile sensors. A recent expedition to the wreck of La Lune - the flagship of King Louis XIV which sank in 1664, 20 miles off the southern coast of France - was OceanOne's maiden voyage. No human had touched the ruins or the countless treasures and artifacts the ship once carried in the centuries since, and OceanOne recovered a grapefruit-sized vase.
Transcript
00:00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING] OceanOne is aimed at bringing a new capability for underwater exploration. The intent here is to have a diver diving virtually, creating a robot that can be the physical representation of the human. A human-made robotic diver that can have bi-manual capabilities.
00:00:39 So it has two hands. It has stereo vision. And the most amazing thing about it is that you can feel what the robot is doing while it's sitting up on the boat. And this is combining the technology of haptics-- that is the idea that we can reflect the contact forces. It's almost like you are there. With the sense of touch, you create a new dimension
00:01:07 of perception. This robot is oil-filled. It allows us to take the robot very deep. This robot can go 2,000 meters. And it is truly a human-like machine that is also human friendly. La Lune is a 17th century shipwreck located about 20 miles off the coast of Toulon in France at 100 meters.
00:01:35 In the last year, we have been working and getting our robots ready to take on that expedition. And we are going to land on the moon. More than 70% of the surface of the planet is water. We have a lot of structures, a lot of coral reefs to monitor. We need to reach down there. You can think about it as a solution where we physically extract the human from a dangerous area. But we let the human be connected
00:02:11 to the robot in a very intuitive and meaningful way. And then the human can provide the expertise, the cognitive abilities, to the robot. And the two bring together this amazing synergy. [MUSIC PLAYING] For more, please visit us at stanford.edu.