Robot mermaid finds treasure in Louis XIV's shipwreck

Robot mermaids can dive to depths humans cannot reach to search for 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 tested 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 will change underwater exploration.

“Humans can equip robots with intuition, expertise, and awareness. 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 could expand its underwater explorations to longer periods of time and greater depths.

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

The OceanOne robot is very humanoid in shape. It has human-like vision thanks to two forward-facing cameras. Its wrists have movable joints connected to force sensors. These sensors act directly 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 equipped with tactile sensors.

According to VNE