The EU-funded Collective Cognitive Robotics (CoCoRo) project has built a swarm of 41 autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) that show collective cognition. Throughout 2015 – The Year of CoCoRo – we will be uploading a new weekly video detailing the latest stage in its development. This video shows the Jeff robots docking and undocking autonomously in Livorno harbor.
After a successful test of autonomous docking in our pool, we then tested this functionality in Livorno harbor. Despite all the waves, turbulence, wind, rain and other challenges, docking was very reliable and fast. We could also use docking to deploy a robot to a specific site with our radio-controlled surface station. Bear in mind: docking and undocking is autonomous, as is the Jeff robot – as soon as it undocks from the base station.
To learn more about the project, see this introductory post, or check out all the videos from the Year of CoCoRo on Robohub.