MIT’s New Underwater Robot Can Hover in Place

Odyssey IV, developed by MIT Sea Grant College Program’s Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Laboratory, offers novel hovering capabilities, making it a a boon for oil explorers, archaeologists and more. By David Chandler, MIT News Office MIT researchers have designed a new robotic underwater vehicle that can hover in place like a helicopter—an invaluable tool for deepwater oil explorers, marine archaeologists, oceanographers and others. The new craft, called Odyssey IV, is the latest in a series of small, inexpensive artificially intelligent submarines developed over the last two decades by the MIT Sea Grant College Program’s Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Laboratory. The Odyssey series revolutionized underwater research in the 1990s by introducing the thrifty and highly capable underwater robots. But the previous Odyssey vehicles still had one significant limitation: Like… View this post