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The latest X Prize challenges teams to explore the sea floor using autonomous, untethered robots:
There is a new X Prize to accelerate technologies to explore the ocean. Shell is sponsoring the competition, which will challenge teams to map a 4km-deep, 500-sq-km area of sea floor using autonomous robots. The award, which is valued at $7m (£4.6m), will have to be claimed before the end of 2018. Previous ocean incentives put up by the X Prize organisation have helped develop oil clean-up solutions and sensors to monitor ocean acidification.
[...] X Prize technical director Dr Jyotika Virmani said much remained to be discovered about our planet. "It was a Caribbean sponge that gave us AZT, the compound used in AIDS treatments. There are many more medical benefits just waiting to be discovered, but we have no idea because the oceans remain largely unexplored," she told BBC News.
Although technologies already exist to survey the seabed at 4,000m down, the particular rules of the Shell Ocean Discovery competition will make even current experts in the field scratch their heads. The entrants will have to deploy their solutions from land or from the air; they cannot use a ship or even be in the survey area at the time. So, no cable can be used to remotely operate vehicles; they will need to be fully autonomous. There will be two rounds to the competition. The first, to be held in 2017, will be undertaken at a shallower depth of 2,000m, and require teams to make a bathymetric map of at least 20% of a 500-sq-km zone of seabed in roughly 6-8 hours.
The top 10 teams will then go forward to the second round, which will be held at the full competition depth of 4,000m. At least 50% of this area will have to be mapped in 12-15 hours. A scanning resolution of 5m per pixel is demanded. The teams will have to return high-resolution pictures from the deep as well, of a target specified by the organisers. Control and communications in the dark at 4,000m will be tough enough, never mind the consideration of pressure, which will be about 40 megapascals - nearly 6,000 pounds per square inch.
[...] There will be a separate bonus prize of $1m to go to the team that can demonstrate new chemical and biological underwater sensors. They will have to "sniff" a target to its source in the survey zone. That prize is sponsored by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).
The tagline: 95% of the ocean is unexplored. The sponsor: Shell.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gravis on Tuesday December 15 2015, @04:45PM
the problem i have with this project is that it's not about helping humanity achieve something new and great, it's about helping shell designing new deep sea robot technologies so that they can drill in the depths of the ocean. what's worse, is that what they are drilling for will continue the ruination of our atmosphere. oh and when Shell has a "little mishap" like BP, they will have ruined the ocean and the air. nobody should be entering this X prize competition.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by hendrikboom on Tuesday December 15 2015, @06:24PM
We'll need this kind of technology just as much to repair stuff after one of those deep-water mishaps. As for what the robots are going to do down there, for now it doesn't matter as much as their ability to function at all. Autonomous mapping is just one of the easiest things to get them them to do.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Tuesday December 15 2015, @10:03PM
We'll need this kind of technology just as much to repair stuff after one of those deep-water mishaps.
yeah but here's the thing... they need the robots in order to drill in the first place. no robots -> no drilling -> no accidents.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday December 15 2015, @10:52PM
Exactly -- that argument is horrible. You can't justify the means by justifying the end.
You can't rationalize the need by saying that because the need is fullfilled we need even more of it in case something goes wrong!
It's like using the word Stupid in the definition of the word Stupid. That's stupid and cannot be done and still make sense to someone that doesn't know what stupid is.
You can't demand robots to be made to fix robots that aren't needed citing the robots need robots to fix them if the robots are built so let's build both types of robots because they're going to be necessary despite not being needed.
Some people do not get that the oil may be worth more in the ground...But in the end, I guess you can fool me and say they are going to launch the robots to Eurpoa or Titan to drill oil there. I'd totally meet the definition of stupid to support that initiative, despite the clear application for its use here.
Note I have a dependency on oil, but I'd prefer to use less of it than to let its related problems get worse and become more costly to resolve. Adding robots doesn't make the problem any less harmful..