Description

Deep Sea Exploration

The promise of oceanic discovery has intrigued scientists and explorers for centuries, whether to study underwater ecology and climate change, or to uncover natural resources and historic secrets buried deep at archaeological sites. Reaching these depth is imperative since factors such as pollution and deep-sea trawling increasingly threaten ecology and archaeological sites. 

These needs demand a system deploying human-level expertise at the depths, and yet remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) are inadequate for the task. To meet the challenge of dexterous operation at oceanic depths, in collaboration with KAUST’s Red Sea Research Center and MEKA Robotics, Oussama Khatib and the team developed Ocean One, a bimanual humanoid robot that brings immediate and intuitive haptic interaction to oceanic environments.

Introducing Ocean One, the haptic robotic avatar

During this lecture, Oussama Khatib will talk about how teaming with the French Ministry of Culture’s Underwater Archaeology Research Department, they deployed Ocean One in an expedition in the Mediterranean to Louis XIV’s flagship Lune, lying off the coast of Toulon at ninety-one meters. In the spring of 2016, Ocean One became the first robotic avatar to embody a human’s presence at the seabed. Ocean One’s journey in the Mediterranean marks a new level of marine exploration: Much as past technological innovations have impacted society, Ocean One’s ability to distance humans physically from dangerous and unreachable work spaces while connecting their skills, intuition, and experience to the task promises to fundamentally alter remote work. Robotic avatars will search for and acquire materials, support equipment, build infrastructure, and perform disaster prevention and recovery operations - be it deep in oceans and mines, at mountain tops, or in space.

This keynote lecture will be followed by the Science of Storytelling Awards. 

Nanny services are available for children from 3 to 8 years old. Fill up this form to register.  

Experience #WEP2018 Virtually

Tune in every day to the KAUST Official YouTube Channel or Facebook Page to watch livestreams of our keynote lectures and special interviews with the speakers.

Watch WEP 2018 Keynotes lectures

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