Scientists at China's Beihang University developed a tiny morphable robot to explore the ocean's depths — and it's now taken a dive into the Mariana Trench. The team successfully demonstrated that its creation can swim, crawl, and glide untethered at a depth of 10,600 meters (34,776 feet) in Earth’s deepest oceanic trench, located in the Pacific Ocean.
Separately, the researchers also developed a soft gripper, which can be attached to a rigid robot. It was tested in the South China Sea, where the team attached it to an arm on a submersible, which they sent 3,400 metres (34,776 feet) deep. There, the gripper collected small marine creatures, such as starfish and urchins resting on the seafloor.
About 70 percent of our planet is covered by oceans, but only a fraction has been explored, and some of the reasons for that lie in the challenging environment of the deep seas, such as extreme cold, perpetual darkness, and crushing pressure.
The advancement of technology is helping overcome some of these obstacles. Today's existing deep sea exploration craft, most of which are operated by humans on board, can disturb the fragile ecosystems they’re sent to study.
Beihang University’s novel creation can generate movement by using swap-through motion to switch between two stable states. Here’s how it works: the robot contains incompressible components, such as tail fins for swimming, a set of legs for crawling, and foldable pectoral fins that enable gliding. These can store elastic energy at high pressures, which the robot can then use for faster movement once submerged at greater depths. If the robot repositions its legs when moving, it can switch between different modes of locomotion.
Deep sea robots have so far helped scientists spot previously uncovered marvels of the ocean world, including the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s 2024 expedition in the waters near Chile, in which the remotely operated vehicle SuBastian spotted an epic migration of crabs, a shimmering, psychedelic marine worm, life flourishing around deep methane seeps, and possibly 60 new species.
So, after Beihang University’s successful tests in the Mariana Trench and the South China Sea, the researchers are hopeful that the tiny machines can contribute to an improved understanding of deep-sea environments and the weird and wonderful life that thrives in this dark realm.
