Mr. Future

From New Scientist Tech:

“A robotic submarine yesterday mapped the bottom of the world’s deepest water-filled sinkhole for the first time last Thursday. Similar autonomous craft could some day be used to explore the oceans of Jupiter’s moon Europa, researchers hope.”

The two meter 1.2 ton robotic sub known as DEPTHX (Deep Phreatic Thermal Explorer) charted the unexplored bottom of El Zacatón Cenote in eastern Mexico while collecting samples from the walls at depths down to 270 meters.

DEPTHX is one of the few autonomous submarines that use the advanced navigation method known as SLAM: Simultaneous Location and Mapping. This allows DEPTHX to create maps as it goes, which it then uses to predict, navigate, and explore.

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(via Slashdot.org)