Transatlantic pioneer

A pioneering underwater robot built by Rutgers scientists is heading to the Smithsonian Museum to go on display. WHYY has more on the mission of the "Scarlet Knight."

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Rutgers oceanographers and their Spanish colleagues lifted their yellow torpedo-looking robot from the Atlantic Ocean off Spain back in December. The unmanned robot had traveled for eight months and 4,500 miles.

Trembanis: I don't think it's too far off to put it up there as the oceanographic equivalent to sputnik.

Art Trembanis is a professor at the University of Delaware, and wasn't involved in the mission. But he does similar work with robots, and knows just what a feat it was for the Scarlet Knight to be the first robot to cross the Atlantic.

The robot negotiated multiple threats — such as ships, fishnets, and corrosion from salt water.

Glenn: But the biggest hazard of all is biological. It could easily have things grow on it. Fish are attracted to it and they use it as a place to hide. And larger fish can come and attracted by the smaller fish.

Scott Glenn, who led the project, thinks the first robot he sent on a transatlantic mission sank because a large animal punctured the hull. Glenn says robots are less expensive and offer more efficient ways to collect information about ocean conditions, weather and climate change.

Glenn: The important thing about sending a robot out there is there's no people involved. You can put them into dangerous places, into storms, into the Arctic and Antarctic, and because of that we can sample the ocean much better.

Trembanis says the success at Rutgers demonstrates that humans can have more remote monitoring of the oceans.

Trembanis: Nobody thinks twice that there are satellites, literally hundreds of satellites whirling overhead monitoring right now. But here's this first crossing. And I hope it's certainly not the last.

Glenn says his next goal is to send a fleet of robots to circumnavigate the globe.

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