Frederic Osada/DRASSM/Stanford
More than 330 meters below the surface of the Mediterranean, OceanOne, a humanoid submersible developed by Stanford University’s Robotics Lab, closed in on its target: the Aléria, a 2nd-Century Roman shipwreck that held ancient treasure. For a moment, the sub hovered just above the seabed in the silent darkness. A smaller helper robot nearby readjusted its spotlight, illuminating the ground. Then OceanOne softly plunged its fingers into the sand at the base of the wreck, and started feeling around.
“I’m seeing through the eyes of the robot, and I’m touching through the hands of the robot,” Oussama Khatib, director of the Robotics Lab at Stanford, told The Daily Beast.
Carefully, the robot’s hands lightly combed the sand. It stopped, readjusted its grip, and unearthed a small object out of a brief puff of silt. Khatib drew it closer into view: a near perfectly preserved oil lamp from the Early Roman Empire.