The Crown of Thorns starfish is a destructive underwater species that has been eating away at the coral reefs, including the Great Barrier Reef. With newly developed technology, researchers have been able to construct a robot that will operate underwater without any direction from its human creators to target and administer a lethal injection before the starfish can flee. The robot was designed to both identify and eliminate the crown of thorns starfish from the coral reefs.
Prior to the development of this technology, human divers worked tirelessly to eradicate the starfish from specific sites, but there are simply more COT starfish than there are divers to eradicate them. Additionally, the underwater robot can work around the clock and in any weather conditions.
In addition to the need to only inject the COT starfish, it has to be done in a way that doesn’t upset the ecological balance of the underwater environment. In an eight hour day the robot technology can identify and eliminate up to 200 starfish.
The underwater robot is equipped with a vision system that has been designed to seek out the starfish. Once the starfish have been located and injected with bile salts, human divers collect the survivors. The robot itself is equipped with a computer system that allows it to think for itself and operate without human interaction. If the robot comes across an object that it is uncertain is a COT starfish it will take a photo which is transmitted to an above ground computer system leaving the identification to a human who will input feedback into the robot’s memory for future use.
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