News Excerpt:
The Goa-based CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) has launched an autonomous underwater vehicle called C-bot, a robot with advanced features for increased surveillance over the coral reefs.
About the C-bot:
- This robot is the first step to building a capable underwater vehicle that can scan the depth of the Indian Ocean
- The vehicle can travel to a depth of 200 metres underwater.
- It will help in maintaining surveillance over the coral reefs in the ocean.
- With different sensors, different cameras, the robot measures what the parameters are, and might help explain why the corals are dying the way they are.
- Besides helping researchers, the C-bot will also help the Indian Navy perform bathymetry studies to help plot navigation channels and scope out hydrothermal vents, where geothermally heated water seeps up from deep below the ocean floor.
- Bathymetry is the study of the "beds" or "floors" of water bodies, including the ocean, rivers, streams, and lakes.
- The robot will also help in finding the active hydrothermal vents which are emitting a lot of elements into the ocean and active biology which is going on in many places, like in many extreme environments where the temperature is 400-500 degrees Celsius.
- The vehicle can send real time data and photographs, which will help researchers in their studies.
