Sensorbots are being developed at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute to measure biogeochemical signatures with sensors for pH, temperature and oxygen that are communicated via blue flashes of light.A high-speed camera on the seafloor picks up the signals from the Sensorbots and stores them in a central data hub.
These unique robots are being designed to be deployed in the hundreds, to travel in formation, and to communicate together as a sensor web for continuous deep ocean exploration. The Sensorbots can detect macro events such as earthquakes or other deep sea disturbances as well as micro analytical functions such as, “spatially and temporally indexed genomic analyses of microbial communities.”
During a recent research cruise the Sensorbots were deployed at a depth of 1500 meters around a hydrothermal vent field of an undersea volcano. Twenty Sensorbots were spread out and constantly monitored for three days.
This research was funded by an $18 million grant for a National Institutes of Health Center of Excellence in Genomics Science that began in 2001, and has since has been renewed for an additional $18 million. The group will be continuing their Sensorbot experiments in a new undersea cabled environment belonging to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). In addition to MBARI, the Center for Biosignatures Discovery Automation collaborates with other schools at ASU, including the School of Earth and Space Exploration and the Global Institute of Sustainability.
