Autonomous Sea Turtle Robot for Marine Fieldwork

2026-02-24

AI Summary

This work addresses the challenge of enabling autonomous underwater vehicles to perform safe, close-proximity operations in complex marine environments such as coral reefs, where strong currents, variable lighting, limited perception, and ecological sensitivity hinder conventional approaches. The authors propose a bioinspired turtle-like underwater robot that integrates biomimetic propulsion, a hybrid soft-rigid structure, and tightly coupled vision-driven control. The system incorporates depth-heading stabilization, real-time target tracking, and a lightweight obstacle avoidance algorithm to enable low-disturbance interaction with mobile targets—including marine organisms and divers—while operating untethered. Field trials in live coral reef habitats demonstrated a 91% obstacle avoidance success rate and, for the first time, validated the feasibility of deploying closed-loop vision-controlled bioinspired robots in ecologically sensitive underwater settings.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Multimodal Perception & Sensor Fusion
• Humans and AI: Human-Aware Planning and Behavior Prediction
• Computer Vision: Vision for Robotics & Autonomous Driving

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Vertical and domain-specific search

Abstract

Autonomous robots can transform how we observe marine ecosystems, but close-range operation in reefs and other cluttered habitats remains difficult. Vehicles must maneuver safely near animals and fragile structures while coping with currents, variable illumination and limited sensing. Previous approaches simplify these problems by leveraging soft materials and bioinspired swimming designs, but such platforms remain limited in terms of deployable autonomy. Here we present a sea turtle-inspired autonomous underwater robot that closed the gap between bioinspired locomotion and field-ready autonomy through a tightly integrated, vision-driven control stack. The robot combines robust depth-heading stabilization with obstacle avoidance and target-centric control, enabling it to track and interact with moving objects in complex terrain. We validate the robot in controlled pool experiments and in a live coral reef exhibit at the New England Aquarium, demonstrating stable operation and reliable tracking of fast-moving marine animals and human divers. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first integrated biomimetic robotic system, combining novel hardware, control, and field experiments, deployed to track and monitor real marine animals in their natural environment. During off-tether experiments, we demonstrate safe navigation around obstacles (91\% success rate in the aquarium exhibit) and introduce a low-compute onboard tracking mode. Together, these results establish a practical route toward soft-rigid hybrid, bioinspired underwater robots capable of minimally disruptive exploration and close-range monitoring in sensitive ecosystems.

Problem

• autonomous underwater robot
• bioinspired locomotion
• close-range monitoring
• obstacle avoidance
• marine fieldwork

Innovation

• bioinspired robotics
• autonomous underwater vehicle
• vision-based control
• soft-rigid hybrid design
• marine fieldwork