A humanoid diving robot has recovered treasure from the wreck of French King Louis XIV's flagship, untouched for nearly 400 years. The bot not only looks somewhat human-shaped, it's also got stereoscopic humanlike vision, artificial intelligence, and haptic force feedback. This virtual diver, dubbed OceanOne, will take on underwater work too dangerous for humans, as well as exploration of the ocean's depths.
The robot's shipwreck excursion was its maiden voyage, on a dive 100 meters below the surface of the Mediterranean Sea to La Lune, wrecked in 1664 and not touched since by human hands. OceanOne operates like a highly specialized remotely operated vehicle (ROV), and looks something like an unusually shaped ROV attached to a humanoid torso, arms, and head.
During the treasure-hunting expedition, it was remotely operated by its designer, Oussama Khatib, a Stanford University professor of computer science. Khatib's team of graduate and undergraduate students helped build the robot, which is the first prototype in what he hopes will be a fleet that works in concert, according to a Stanford University news service story.
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