2 minute read
SUSTAINABILITY AWARD
AWARDS
AWARD FOR SUSTAINABILITY
RANGERBOT PRODUCT DESIGN
COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL
DESIGNED BY QUT – Engineering and Interface Team Designworks – Industrial Design
COMMISSIONED BY Great Barrier Reef Foundation
DESIGNED IN Australia
RangerBot is the world’s first vision-based underwater robotic system designed specifically for coral reef environments. Its unique design and intuitive user interface provides end-users (coral reef mangers, researchers, and community groups) with a targeted, affordable and reconfigurable solution for upscaling monitoring and management of reef ecosystems worldwide.
Challenge
Impact Solution
RangerBot solves the specific challenge of empowering reef managers, researchers and community groups with intuitive, customisable and affordable robotic tools to upscale underwater monitoring of the Great Barrier Reef, control marine pests and facilitate coral restoration activities.
The objectives:
Built around world-leading image processing algorithms giving diver like capabilities, the design brief required; 1 Day-night visual navigation and science data collection capabilities, 2 Six degree-of-freedom manoeuvrability, 3 Ability to attach multiple science and manipulation payloads, 4 Transportation on commercial flights (without batteries), 5 An intuitive interface to engage a range of stakeholders, and 6 A build price range of AUD$5k – 20k
RangerBot was co-developed around a world-leading autonomous vision system and a unique and functional physical form over a 12-month development phase. This demanded a multi-disciplinary design team of AI specialists, engineers, industrial and interactive designers. The design was guided by end-user functional requirements and 10 years of operational experience in marine robotics. Monthly prototype trials in pools and on the Great Barrier Reef provided critical design, usability and performance feedback allowing iteration to validate the product at each stage. This ensured that on every performance metric (robotic capability, usability, hydrodynamics, controllability and transportability) the final product exceeded the brief.
RangerBot continues to achieve positive impact and international commercial interest. RangerBot’s have demonstrated the ability to control pests like the Crown-Of-Thorns Starfish on the Great Barrier Reef, and monitor and map reef health indicators such as coral bleaching and water quality. RangerBot’s ability to revolutionise the way our oceans and coral reefs are managed is continually being assessed by Australia’s primary research and management agencies with commercial orders already taken. In November 2018, a world’s first demonstration used RangerBot’s to spread coral larvae over reefs damaged by bleaching and cyclones. This is now being translated to other locations worldwide.
