Submarine robots to kill starfish…

If that headline doesn’t arouse your curiosity, few things will. In short, the Australian authorities are to use a low-cost submarine drone in the Great Barrier Reef, a natural wonder made up of 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands covering more than 2,300 kilometers. The drones are equipped with a computerized vision system to locate the Acanthaster planci starfish, better known as the so-called crown of thorns or COT, a predator whose excessive proliferation is endangering the survival of the largest coral reef in the world.

The underwater drone, RangerBot, is the result of a project between the Great Barrier Reef Foundation in partnership with two robotics teachers from Queensland University of Technology, Matthew Dunbabin and Feras Dayoub, who in 2016 were awarded funding of $750,000 after entering the Google Impact Challenge. The intentionally low-cost design can be managed via a tablet after only fifteen minutes of instruction and is able to identify the COTs by a computerized vision system processed locally on the robot, with 99.4% accuracy. Once the star is localized, the robot can administer a lethal injection with a specific toxin.

Until now the task was carried out by divers, who in addition to locating the starfish, had to handle them in often complex and complex environments, taking into account their poisonous spines. Using divers, it was only possible to keep certain areas of the barrier under control and there were not enough available to cause a real change in the ecosystem. In addition, robots, which can remain underwater for around three times as long as a diver, can be used while monitoring other important variables such as water quality, pollution impact, or the extent of damage caused by coral bleaching, another of the great enemies of the reefs, due to global warming. It is estimated that the Great Barrier Reef, one of the natural wonders of the world and fundamental to the Australian economy, has suffered damage over the past three decades that affect half of its population of polyps.

There are several hypotheses as to why there are so many COTs s in the reef, a complex problem from an ecological point of view. Normal populations of COT are considered important to the ecological balance of the reefs, but overfishing of their natural predators and warmer water temperatures, which favor the development of their larvae, are undoubtedly caused by us. Coming up with a technology that aims to control the problem is, from a biological point of view, utterly compelling.

(En espa?ol, aquí)