| Underwater robot connects humans' sight and touch to deep sea | |
| By Taylor Kubota |
Source: techxplore |
7/21/2022 |
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Credit: DRASSM, Gedeon, Stanford University |
As the underwater robot OceanOneK carefully navigated toward the upper deck railing of the sunken Italian steamship Le Francesco Crispi about 500 m below the Mediterranean's surface this month (roughly a third of a mile), Stanford University roboticist Oussama Khatib felt as though he himself was there. |
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OceanOneK has a humanoid top half and a slimmer back half with eight multi-directional thrusters that allow careful maneuvering underwater. The robot's haptic—or touch-based—feedback system and stereoscopic vision produced incredibly realistic sensations that equaled what he would have experienced were he down below, rather than above onboard the control ship. Peering through OceanOneK robot's eyes and feeling through its hands, Khatib perceived a kaleidoscope of life—pink and green and rusty-orange—layered on and around the ship. He felt the resistance of the water and could discern the shapes and proximity of the historic relic around him. |
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