ScienceThe Times of IndiaIn 2018, Australia’s RangerBot identified coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish with 99.4% accuracy and was designed to target them with bile-salt injections
An Australian-built underwater robot called RangerBot can identify coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish with 99.4 per cent accuracy and inject them to protect the Great Barrier Reef.
Discover how RangerBot, an autonomous robot, is safeguarding the Great Barrier Reef from coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish with unprecedented accuracy and efficiency.
Queensland University of Technology unveiled RangerBot in 2018, an autonomous underwater robot designed to detect and cull crown-of-thorns starfish on the Great Barrier Reef.
The robot roams freely without a tether, identifies the starfish with 99.4 per cent accuracy, and targets them with bile-salt injections, far outperforming earlier prototypes.
RangerBot supplements the slow and physically demanding work of divers, helping to cover more of the reef's vast area during starfish outbreak events.
Crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks are responsible for a significant share of all coral loss on the Great Barrier Reef over recent decades, researchers estimate.
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