Transcriber: Lisa Thompson Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
I want to share with you today
how we can use new technology to make oil skimmers of the future smarter.
And we're developing one that can think on its own;
it can perform multiple tasks,
and it's learning how to behave by mimicking ants.
So, how does current skimming technology measure up today?
We've learned a lot from the recent oil spill.
We've learned that over the past 20 years,
drilling technology has made huge advancements,
while skimming technology has fallen way behind.
In fact, over this past oil spill,
over 800 skimmers were deployed to help clean the oil,
but they only collected three percent,
leaving most of the oil to harmful dispersants.
So we asked the question, "How can we make a smarter skimmer,
and what are the characteristics of a future skimmer?"
We came up with three.
The first is autonomy.
We knew from the beginning that we wanted a skimmer that was unmanned,
that kept humans away from the harmful chemicals
found in crude oil and dispersants.
When we learned about a new nanofabric
developed just down the hall from us at MIT -
a fabric that could absorb oil -
we imagined it as the key technology
to help make the autonomy of our vehicle seamless.
I'd like to introduce Seaswarm,
using the same nanofabric like a continuous paper towel,
gliding on the surface of the water,
continuously soaking up the oil
and processing it and collecting it in a chamber.
Because Seaswarm is powered with enough solar energy,
it can operate day and night continuously for weeks.
The second characteristic was scalability,
something we're learning by studying ants.
Now, a single ant by itself cannot accomplish as many tasks as a colony,
and when the ants come together and form teams,
they can accomplish things unthinkable by an individual ant,
such as determining the quickest path to food
and delegating tasks and tending to specific territories.
So we can take the same swarming behavior that we're seeing in nature
and apply it to robots.
We can use algorithms and sensors,
wi-fi and GPS.
And just like ants, the robots can operate as a single entity
or they can come together as a swarm,
and they can share information with each other.
They can share things like weather patterns and oil spill locations.
So the more information that they're sharing with each other,
the smarter they become;
and the smarter they become,
the more intelligent decisions they can make.
They can determine the quickest path to the oil,
and they can determine which teams to form, and so on.
And finally, Seaswarm is adaptable;
it can respond to a multitude of tasks in many different locations,
from the middle of the ocean to the middle of a lake.
Actually, what you see here in this image is the original inspiration for Seaswarm.
This is an image of the garbage patch,
a kind of soup of plastic and trash the size of Texas
in the middle of the ocean.
Just as our team was originally forming to tackle the garbage patch,
the oil spill occurred,
and we decided to redirect our efforts to oil spill recovery.
But now we're revisiting the garbage patch,
and we're reimagining our vehicle
as something that could tackle many sea-related issues,
something that could constantly respond to oil spills and chemical spills,
gathering trash and garbage,
all while monitoring the vitals of our sea,
and then relaying this information back to us in real time.
We see Seaswarm as a future skimmer, something that's smarter.
With a fleet of autonomous vehicles
constantly surveying the surface of our water,
we can hear, with more clarity than ever before,
exactly what the ocean is saying to us,
and we can quickly respond and adapt to its needs.
Thank you.
(Applause)