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A Smarter Underwater Bot

WHOI assistant scientist Yogesh Girdhar is developing underwater robots that can explore in a more humanlike way. This includes having the ability to distinguish “interesting” visual stimuli and home in on them, rather than proceeding on preprogrammed routes in a more, well, robotic fashion. Girdhar helped develop this experimental vehicle, called Aqua. In experiments off Barbados, it detected something different and interesting — Girdhar himself. It followed him until he stopped, and then it hovered over him. (Photo by Ioannis Rekleitis, McGill University)