More than one million tons of munitions dumped in the North and Baltic Seas during and after the two world wars posing a threat to both humans and the environment. So far, trained divers had to recover the ammunition. In the future, however, robots will take on this challenging and potentially dangerous task. The technologies required for this are being developed by the Robotics Innovation Center of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) headed by Prof. Dr. Frank Kirchner in the current CleanSeas project. Thanks to Artificial Intelligence, the robotic systems should be able to detect ordnance underwater and prepare its removal autonomously.

UK offshore wind workers could be kept safe using a remotely operated search and rescue service, thanks to a project backed by £7 million of government support. This project is one of 38 business-led projects which will receive funding to accelerate their robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The projects are part of UK Research and Innovation’s robots for a safer world challenge.

Launching today, robotics technology player Vaarst will give offshore and marine robotics new capabilities through retrofitted artificial intelligence and autonomy.

The Australian government’s newly formed Australian Space Agency (ASA) has partnered with Fugro to design, build and operate the Australian Space Automation, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Control Complex (SpAARC) in Western Australia (WA).

Stimulating creative thinking by business leaders, senior academics and technologists with an interest in key disruptive technologies in areas such as artificial intelligence, autonomous inspection and coordination of multiple vehicles, lies at the heart of the one-day Catch the Next Wave Conference being held in London on 14 March, the day before the world’s largest marine science and ocean technology event, Oceanology International 2016, opens.