This Crab Robot Will Help Clean Up All Plastic Waste In Our Oceans, From Top To Bottom

We've been putting far too much trash into our oceans, and now it's starting to affect the marine life, even in the deepest parts of the world.

So as scientists try to find ways to fix this problem, a group of researchers believe they have a solution with a new cleaning robot.

Images courtesy: Laura Lezza/Getty Images

The Crab Robot SILVER 2 (Seabed-Interaction Legged Vehicle for Exploration and Research 2) is a new droid created by the Institute of Robotics of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna di Pisa. In partnership with the National Geographic Society and Arbi Dario Spa, they've deployed the bot off the Meloria shoal in the Ligurian Sea off the coast of Italy.

The crab robot is meant to be an underwater explorer, traversing along the sea bed. Along the way, it samples the water looking for microplastic pollution. But that's just for now. Eventually, the team wants to upgrade the robot with an arm that can collect plastic bags, battles, and other junk, and store it until the trash can be retrieved from the ocean and disposed of.

The robot uses six agile crab-like legs to walk and run along the seabed. It can adapt to the changing hardness of the soil under it, survive bumps along the ground, and even more around obstacles by itself.

"This bio-inspired robot can hop and jump in broader areas through a spring-loaded mechanism," project scientific coordinator Marcello Calisti told Sant'Anna di Pisa magazine. "The spring has a simple structure, energy storage and release, and simple control so the robot can jump through an instantaneous contraction of the spring. The crab-like legs include ankle joints which have good jump performance. Our experiments show that the robot can achieve a smooth jump."

Aside from just helping clean the oceans though, the team Calisti believes the robot will also prove to be a superior study tool for researchers focusing on the underwater environment.

Now we just need to figure out how to stop putting all that plastic into the oceans in the first place.