Scalable Marine Robotics for a New Era of Ocean Exploration
The ocean is vital to all living beings but still needs to be explored, leaving many questions unanswered. Fortunately, underwater robotics has greatly improved ocean exploration by accurately mapping the seafloor in high resolution and tracking animals in midwater. However, these platforms are often too expensive to build and operate, limiting ocean exploration and discovery. To address this issue, we need to lower the barriers to entry, particularly for scientific research requiring high-resolution measurements on a large scale. In this talk, I will share some of the collaborative research work that our team, the CoMPAS lab at MBARI, has been involved in addressing precision navigation and machine perception. These are just a few examples of how marine robotics research can help close the ocean exploration gap.