Robots go under the seas

2 Bay State firms' devices help the Navy clear mines from the ocean more safely and efficiently

With the twist of a knob, electronics technician Erik White sent a burst of sonar into the water just west of Bassetts Island off Pocasset. About 20 feet from the boat where White stood, a small bright yellow watercraft came to life.

A spray of water burst from the vessel's tail as its propeller spun up. It surged forward, creating a miniature wake. Suddenly, it sank -- just as it was supposed to.

The REMUS 100 has gone hunting for submerged mines, the kind that could vaporize any boat in this peaceful harbor, or open up the belly of a warship in the Persian Gulf. It's the ideal task for an autonomous underwater vehicle, or AUV -- basically, a self-guided seagoing robot. REMUS -- the name stands for Remote Environmental Measuring UnitS -- was born from research at Massachusetts' famed Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

In 2001, Christopher von Alt, former principal engineer at Woods Hole, joined with colleagues to commercialize the REMUS technology. Von Alt's company, Hydroid LLC of Pocasset, has sold about 130 REMUS machines, most of them to the US Navy.

"REMUS was the first AUV that was certified by the Navy for use as a weapon of war," said von Alt. The navies of Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand also use them.

Massachusetts has a strong land-based military robot industry, thanks to companies like iRobot Corp. and Foster-Miller Inc. The role locally developed robots play in helping patrol the seas is less well known, but these underwater sentries have already proved their worth in combat operations.

"We use them quite frequently now," said Landon Hutchens , public affairs officer for the Navy's Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington. "They work very well and make clearance of underwater mines and other things more rapid and more efficient."

In 2003, during the invasion of Iraq, US Navy special warfare teams used several of the REMUS robots to scour the port of Umm Qasr for mines with high-resolution sonars. Even when they find nothing, robots like the REMUS free up Navy personnel for other, safer tasks. The goal, said the Navy's Hutchens, is to "keep the man out of the minefield."

REMUS doesn't swim alone; in Cambridge, Bluefin Robotics Corp. produces a competing line of undersea robots, based on technology developed for the Navy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Bluefin has sold about 50 units, mostly to the US Navy. The two companies make a range of seagoing robots, priced from $350,000 to $2.5 million and capable of diving as deep as 18,000 feet. Both Bluefin and Hydroid are privately held companies and don't reveal their finances. But both say they're making a profit, and Hydroid says its sales are growing at more than 30 percent per year.

Could Robots Replace Humans in Mines?

Why do human beings still risk their lives burrowing miles under ground and doing one of the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs in the world?

It's an increasingly urgent question, given the recent high-profile mining accidents in Sago, W.Va., and Huntington, Utah. A small corps of engineers and robotics experts envision a day in the not-too-distant future when robots and other technology do most of the dangerous mining work, and even help rescue trapped miners, like the six men trapped in a mine in Utah.

"It's very promising technology," says Davitt McAteer, a former official with the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Robotic technology, in particular, holds much promise, McAteer says, especially when it comes to mapping mines and rescuing trapped miners — the special operations of the mining industry. Robots can go where humans dare not tread: down debris-strewn corridors filled with flames and noxious fumes. Engineers envision robots acting as the modern-day version of the canaries that were once lowered into coal mines to check for poisonous gasses. (And robots, of course, don't demand higher salaries or go on strike.)

One of the first mining robots was developed five years ago at Carnegie-Mellon University's Robotics Institute. It was called Groundhog and it looked like a golf cart on steroids. It used lasers to "see" in dark tunnels and map abandoned mines — some of the most dangerous work in the business. Researchers sent Groundhog into an abandoned mine in Pennsylvania where it slogged deep into the orange muck, successfully navigating with its laser rangefinders.

A mining robot, called Groundhog, in action at a Pennsylvania coal mine.

The Cave Crawler mining robot: the latest prototype developed by Carnegie-Mellon University.

The Cave Crawler mining robot, the latest prototype developed by Carnegie-Mellon University. Carnegie-Mellon University