Robot mermaid searches for treasure in the wreck of King Louis XIV

Robot mermaids can dive to depths humans cannot reach in search of treasures trapped in the wreck of French King Louis XIV's ship.

OceanOne mermaid robot searches for treasure on the wreck of King Louis XIV. Photo: Teddy Seguin.

According to the Guardian, in mid-April 2016, roboticists at Stanford University in the US successfully sent a mermaid robot to a shipwreck to retrieve a precious vase the size of a bunch of grapes. In 1664, King Louis XIV’s navigator ship La Lune sank 32 km south of Toulon, France. Since then, the wreck has remained at a depth of 100 m.

Previously, the OceanOne mermaid robot was put into testing through virtual reality technology. Oussama Khatib, a professor of computer science at Stanford University, was the one who directly controlled the robot. Khatib said that combining human skills with the sturdy structure of the mermaid robot would change underwater exploration.

“Humans can equip robots with intuition, expertise and cognitive abilities. Robots can operate in environments that are dangerous to humans,” Khatib said. Divers searching for shipwrecks and deep-sea creatures often struggle with oxygen supplies and water pressure. The success of this test suggests that OceanOne can extend underwater explorations for longer periods of time and at greater depths.

The original goal of the team that built OceanOne was to study coral reefs deep in the Red Sea. The Stanford project aims to combine human skills with the reliability of an autonomous submarine.

The OceanOne robot is very human-like in appearance. It has human-like vision thanks to two forward-facing cameras. Its wrists have movable joints connected to force sensors. These sensors directly act on Khatib's hands through a process called sensory feedback. This allows the operator to feel the object the robot is holding. Khatib said that in the future, the robot will be added with tactile sensors.

According to VNE