Robot hunter for lionfish

[tep]

Great idea, just not around me when I'm wearing my zebra stripe wet suit, OK?

Spear-toting robot can guard coral reefs against invasive lionfish

 

[iamrushman]

"The bot attaches to an existing submersible robot and relies on computer vision (trained with thousands of photos) to spot examples of the invasive species and jab them with one of its eight spears."
I think i recall this concept being mentioned a few years ago...glad to see it still being perfected before they turn it loose on the reef........

 

[kelemvor]

I, for one, welcome our new spear-toting robotic overlords.

If it's effective and reliable, it might be good for all the places that are massively infested with lionfish but are too deep for all but tech divers to visit. Who knows if lionfish go deeper than even tech divers, too?

On the other side of the coin we're talking about putting completely autonomous robotic killing machines into the ocean... what could possibly go wrong?

I think they'll have to get rid of the detachable spears and go with something that is not a "consumable" weapon. As it is now, the thing is going to have to reload after every 8 kills. Interesting for a P.O.C. but that's a significant limitation.

 

[Johnoly]

... putting completely autonomous robotic killing machines into the ocean... what could possibly go wrong?....

The Eco's are going to go crazy. There's zero possibility of NOAA/councils issuing a permit for these, not even for testing.

 

[txgoose]

I think they'll have to get rid of the detachable spears and go with something that is not a "consumable" weapon. As it is now, the thing is going to have to reload after every 8 kills. Interesting for a P.O.C. but that's a significant limitation.

They would likely just get it to where it wounds the lion fish good. Put a guard in front of the spear point at its resting position. A retractable barb would be optional. After it extends out to spear the fish, at some interval it will retract and pull the fish off with the guard. A boot scraper of sorts. But the cow dung is replaced with a lion fish. Mechanically that isn’t a big challenge.

I agree that permits will be a chore. What resorts/dive ops are going to support that near their favorite places? I suspect not many. And it would go to zero after the first accident, if one were to happen. Autonomous stabby things may be a tough sell.

 

[Hank49]

They’ll all get swallowed by goliaths.

 

[kelemvor]

What resorts/dive ops are going to support that near their favorite places?

All the commonly dived reefs tend to be well managed by divers. Lionfish populations are still completely unchecked where it's deeper. Go look on youtube for videos of tech divers doing extremely deep wrecks. I remember seeing someone post a video of a wreck at 300' that was covered with hundreds of lionfish - it was amazing how many there were.

I agree permits will be difficult. In this case, I think that's appropriate. Weaponized robots are not something to be taken lightly. Just look at all the hubub about permitting self driving cars - and that's already proven to be vastly safer than the alternative.