Sea-Star Murdering Robots Are Deployed in the Great Barrier Reef

[Judi Lynn]

The RangerBot is a new line of defense against coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish



RangerBot is an autonomous underwater vehicle designed to identify and kill crown-of-thorns starfish by lethal injection. (Photo courtesy of Queensland University of Technology)

By Ashley Braun, Hakai Magazine
smithsonian.com
August 31, 2018 9:00AM

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef can’t catch a break: on top of contending with pollution, hurricanes, and back-to-back-to-back bouts of coral bleaching, the world’s most iconic reef is being eaten alive by millions of prickly, venomous sea stars known as crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS). But in a matchup befitting a sci-fi movie, scientists have developed a new robot to hunt and kill these sea stars—a murderous, autonomous underwater vehicle called RangerBot.

Since 2010, the population of native, coral-eating COTS has been booming, and the outbreak is plaguing the 2,300-kilometer-long Great Barrier Reef. RangerBot is being introduced to the reef—and to sea star nightmares—this week, in part to help with ongoing efforts to control COTS. This autonomous bounty hunter is the result of more than a decade’s worth of research and development by Queensland University of Technology (QUT) roboticist Matthew Dunbabin, backed by a US $750,000 grant from Google’s nonprofit arm.

COTS outbreaks have been a major cause of coral death for the struggling Great Barrier Reef. The booms appear to be caused by multiple factors: the sea stars are prolific and fast growing, agricultural runoff boosts food for their larvae, and humans have overfished the few predators willing to eat the venomous pincushions. Research suggests that getting this sea star explosion under control and preventing future spikes could help reverse coral declines on the Great Barrier Reef.

This is where Dunbabin saw a chance to apply his research in robotic vision. Back in 2005, Dunbabin developed a computerized system that could identify COTS with about 67 percent accuracy. But taking the next step and adapting the system to actually exterminate a sea star once it was spotted was a big challenge. Killing a COTS would have required injecting a toxic solution into every single one of a sea star’s roughly 20 arms. Miss a few and the animal could survive and regenerate. “That’s a big task even for a human and it was impossible for a robotic system,” says Dunbabin.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/sea-star-murdering-robotsa-are-deployed-in-great-barrier-reef-180970177/#3ZYZfh1GSeE1eBbE.99

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Now I don't feel safe wearing my crown-of-thorns swim trunks. :( nt

[pscot]

2. Killing things is what we do best