A squad of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology has work up a new acerate leaf - like golem that can descend through internal-combustion engine - fields to search the sea floor beneath — and this footage from Antarctica is the first footage it ’s returned .
The robot , known as , Icefin was sent through a 12 - inch diamter bore yap drill through 20 meter of ice at Antarctica ’s Ross Ice Shelf . Descending through a further 500 meters of weewee , it found the sea flooring where it tape these ikon ( its capable of descending to 1,500 meters below if it has to ) . The team were then somehow able to recover the automaton , too . you could see a prison term - reverting of its deployment below . Mick West , a lead locomotive engineer on the project , explains what makes Icefin so peculiar in a press release :
“ What unfeignedly separates Icefin from some of the other vehicles is that it ’s fairly slender , yet still has all of the sensors that the scientist … want . Our fomite has orchestration aboard both for piloting and ocean skill that other vehicles do not . ”
Using sonar and SLAM ( simultaneous localization and mapping ) algorithms , Icefin created a 3D map of the region in which it launched , help the squad find their way around and learn the telecasting and data reading material they wanted . The footage revealed a complex collection of life on the sea floor — including sea headliner , sponges and sea anemone , which came as a surprise to some biologists .
But the squad behind the golem has magnanimous plans than looking at the ocean floor beneath Antarctica . It ’s hoped that the technologies explicate for this mission will be borrowed by IE designate for Europa — a moonshine of Jupiter with ice - capped oceans that are call out to be explored . [ Georgia Tech ]
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