Researchers from MIT have created “RoboClam,”. It looks like a cigarette lighter, but it isn’t. The bot buries itself deep in the sea bed and can act as an electronic anchor for underwater submarines. The technology behind the design and execution came from razor clams, tiny and slender sea creatures that bury themselves deep into the ocean’s sandy bed when in danger.

Razor clams are known as the “Ferraris of underwater digging,” and the sleek creatures can dig into the ocean bed at a rate of a centimeter each second. To understand their digging ability, researchers conducted an experiment in which they were placed in boxes filled with sand so that their digging technique could be monitored. They learned that the clam’s quick up-and-down, opening-and-closing movements turn the waterlogged “sand” around it into a liquid-like quicksand. This makes it easy for the clams to dig quicker and use less energy.

The RoboClam uses the same technique to act as underwater anchors for marine transportation.

[Gizmowatch]

MIT’s newest autonomous undersea vehicle, or AUV, is a doozy. Odyssey IV, as the sub is dubbed, can dive up (down?) to 6000 meters, and it is the most autonomous of MIT’s submarines created as part of their Sea Grant program. Erik Sofge from Popular Mechanics got some hands-on time with Odyssey, saying:

Since communication is cut off the instant Odyssey is submerged, if it gets into trouble—because of a system failure, or a realization that it’s somehow drifted off track—the robot knows enough to let its neutral buoyancy drag it back to the surface. Currently, it can follow a preplotted course using GPS waypoints and underwater coordinates culled from acoustic data. A year from now, this AUV could be able to chart its own mission paths by photographing its environment and using image recognition algorithms to find and follow the path of an underwater pipeline. Instead of simply bumping, Roomba-like, into its surroundings or relying on GPS like one of DARPA’s autonomous racecars, Odyssey will exert a groundbreaking level of control over its own fate.

The way the bot navigates is by first criss-crossing a certain area to make its own map of the surroundings. Then multi-directional thrusters allow it move. A downward pinging sensor let’s the sub know how far it is from the seafloor. Currently the robot can only stay underwater for 12 hours at most, but engineers envision an underwater recharging station that would allow Odyssey to be below the surface for months at a time. Future work for Odyssey will likely be surveying underwater pipeline, collecting data on coral ecosystems, and battling the Nautilus.

[Popular Mechanics]