More About Stanford’s Underwater Robot, OceanOneK

More About Stanford’s Underwater Robot, OceanOneK

More about Stanford’s Underwater Robot, OceanOneK
About 500 meters below the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, Stanford’s OceanOneK underwater robot carefully made its way to the top deck railing of the sunken Italian ship Le Francesco Crispi (about a third of a mile). The diving robot dived about 1 km while exploring sunken ships, planes, and a submarine. OceanOneK’s unique features give its users the impression that they are actually visiting these deep water bodies.

OceanOneK can maneuver carefully underwater thanks to eight multi-directional jets on its thinner back half and humanoid top half. The robot’s haptic or tactile feedback system and stereoscopic vision provide surprisingly realistic sensations that match how it would feel if it were underwater instead of on top of a control vessel. OceanOneK’s journey into these depths has two goals: to explore previously uncharted territory and to show that human touch, vision, and interaction can be brought to places far from where humans have been.