Underwater drone to protect Great Barrier Reef by killing starfish

It’s no new news that the Great Barrier Reef is in serious trouble with desperate need of help. Scientists have come to the rescue by introducing an autonomous robot drone to protect the reef, by killing starfish.

After two years of work, researchers from Queensland University of Technology have created a reef-defending autonomous underwater drone named ‘RangerBot’, aimed to protect Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

RangerBot has been officially launched at the Reef HQ Aquarium in Australia. It protects the reef in multiple ways; testing the surrounding water quality while monitoring coral bleaching and detecting pollution, pest species and sediment buildup, and also by mapping the area around the reef quicker than ever, helping for future research, reported Futurism.

Scientist aims at ‘brightening clouds’ to protect Great Barrier Reef

The bot interferes when a predator threatens the reef. Through its computer vision system, RangerBot identifies crown-of-thorn starfish that usually prey upon corals. As soon as the bot detects them, it then injects the starfish with deadly vinegar or bile salts with 99% accuracy, hence killing the pest, but harmless for other reef creatures.

The drone also has the ability to stay underwater three times as long as a human diver and isn’t affected by unfavorable weather conditions. Having an eight-hour battery life, it has been fitted with real-time guidance to avoid obstacles by moving in any direction, as per The Guardian.

“It’s an impressive piece of technology, [it’s] also deliberately low cost to allow production to be scaled up once the next level of operational testing is completed and all the necessary approvals are in place,” said researcher Matthew Dunbabin.

Great Barrier Reef Foundation managing director Anna Marsden said that RangerBot could become an extra pair of eyes and hands for frontline staff managing the reef. “Due to [the reef’s] size and complexity, effective management is a mammoth and expensive task.”

As a collaboration between QUT, Google and Great Barrier Reef Foundation, the team hopes to ultimately launch the drones up the length of the 2,300km long reef.