It manoeuvres rapidly and safely in all directions under water at a level of precision never been seen before. Equipped with small camera eyes and home-made gripping arms, it can even carry out advanced observations and studies under water.

It is an underwater robot – The Little Mermaid – developed by two engineering students at Aarhus University, with a particular focus on enabling missions in the Arctic Ocean.

New opportunities for research
Although the students have initially prepared a functional prototype that can only dive to approximately 10 metres under water, this is good news for researchers and companies in the oil and gas industry with an interest in studying conditions under icebergs and on the sea bed.

“We’ve built a robot that can be remotely controlled from land, can move appropriately, and can study underwater conditions with a very high level of detail. What’s special about the robot is that it acts intuitively and is easy to control remotely, which is quite a crucial step in the direction of increased applicability of underwater robots for different purposes,” says Dennik Ringgaard, an engineering student at Aarhus University.

The robot is the size of a large suitcase and is controlled via a joystick and push-buttons on roughly the same principle as an Xbox controller.

First Danish finalists
The two students behind the robot are the first Danish group to ever qualify for the finals of the world championship in underwater remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), to be held in Canada on 25–27 June.

Here The Little Mermaid will be assessed on its ability to solve different tasks under water in a large cold-water pool with an artificial iceberg.

The tasks include carrying out precise measurements of the size and depth of the iceberg, and assessing whether or not there is a risk of it moving in the direction of the coordinates for some fictitious drilling platforms. It will also collect algae samples and sea urchins from the bottom of the pool, count starfish and record whale sounds.

For this purpose, the two students have equipped the robot with different gripping tools, cameras, grabbing arms and a tube resembling a vacuum cleaner hose for collecting the particularly difficult samples form the bottom of the iceberg.

The robot has six motors and can manoeuvre in all directions, which – according to the students’ own estimate – gives them a good chance of winning.

“We’ve solved the most difficult engineering challenges, so the robot is now one hundred per cent watertight and can resist the considerable pressure under the surface. It has good visibility and a mechanical design that takes water movements and currents into account, so that it doesn’t get swamped all the time. It also reacts very quickly to the remote-controlled signals, and this makes it easy to steer,” says Poul Brix Christensen, an engineering student at Aarhus University.

Advanced mechanics and super easy operation
The two students have tested the underwater robot at the harbour in Aarhus, and it works so intuitively that even random passers-by can operate it for the first thirty seconds using the joystick.

It only took three months for the underwater robot to come to the world. Prior to this, the students contacted a number of leading international companies in marine technology to get good advice and inspiration for the development work. Wherever they turned, they were told that their level of ambition for the robot was totally unrealistic.

“Everyone said it was impossible to create a working robot including testing and troubleshooting within the tight time frame. We nonetheless succeeded in reaching our target with a fully functional version,” say the two students.

It will be clear within a few weeks whether the two Aarhus students can come home victorious from the international ROV competition.

Follow Team AU and The Little Mermaid on the social media

#aarhusuni, #yourniversity, #auingeniør, #AUROV

For more information, please contact
Engineering student Dennik Ringgaard
Aarhus University
dennik.ringgaard@gmail.com
+45 2213 6212

Engineering student Poul Brix Christensen
Aarhus University
b.r.i.x@hotmail.com
+45 4017 5302