The electricity to an island goes out. To find the break in the underwater power cable, a ship pulls up the entire line or deploys remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to traverse the
The electricity to an island goes out. To find the break in the underwater power cable, a ship pulls up the entire line or deploys remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to traverse the line. But what if an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) could map the line and pinpoint the location of the fault for a diver to fix?
Such underwater human-robot teaming is the focus of an MIT Lincoln Laboratory project that seeks to leverage the respective strengths of humans and robots to optimize maritime missions for the U.S. military, including critical infrastructure inspection and repair, search and rescue, harbor entry, and countermine operations.
"Divers and AUVs generally don't team at all underwater," says principal investigator Madeline Miller. "Underwater missions requiring humans typically do so because they involve some sort of manipulation a robot can't do, like repairing infrastructure or deactivating a mine. Even ROVs are challenging to work with underwater in very skilled manipulation tasks because the manipulators themselves aren't agile enough."
Beyond their superior dexterity, humans excel at recognizing objects underwater. But humans working underwater can't perform complex computations or move very quickly, especially if they are carrying heavy equipment; robots have an edge over humans in processing power,
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