The Aquanaut robot from Houston-based Nauticus Robotics looks like something out of a Transformers movie, only cast as a submarine rather than a car. Its arms fold back into its oval-shaped body for rapid travel through the water on its way, for example, to turn a valve or measure corrosion of underwater equipment.
“Any action you want to do in the water that takes touching something, or cleaning something, or turning a valve, or incision, or inserting a tool – that's where we come in,” Radford said. To perform maintenance and data collection, offshore industries use large vessels with operating costs as high as $100,000 a day, according to Radford, and daily fuel emissions of up to 70 metric tons. Once the ship is in the correct location, it deploys a piece of human-operated machinery that remains tethered to the boat.The Aquanaut, Radford said, can do the same work for $40,000 a day and is able to travel underwater, tether-free, for up to 24 hours.
Excellent article and krbuckle!