Trends In Robotics And Implications For The Marine Environment

The current state-of-the-art of robot technology has facilitated the introduction of robot automation, both primitive and intelligent, to marine sciences and engineering in ways which are qualitatively new. Most obvious are the opportunities for the application of robots to human tasks on the basis of (1) economic considerations, which for the marine environment are particularly sanguine because staffing a single human task at sea requires 5-6 persons, plus their support, on a 24-hour basis (when all factors are considered). More important are those opportunities for robotic automation which are characterized by (2) repetitive or highly boring tasks requiring continued alertness, (3) tasks involving high personal risk or a difficult physical environment (such as the bottom of a ship underway), and (4) tasks requiring some humanlike abilities which could not be considered in terms of human abilities and human willingness to take risks. While the current usefulness of industrial robots cannot be disputed, significant technological advances are required and available in vision, tactile sensing, voice control and teaching, and programming language development to build robots that can function as intelligent extensions of human capabilities in the more difficult marine environment. The robot population is expected to increase exponentially in the next 10 years as man's imagination creates new applications to take advantage of new capabilities. The world's oceans provide a rich and ready environment for the implementation of these advanced developments.