In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks to Ben Raana, who is a software engineer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). MBARI uses robots to monitor and explore the oceans to better understand climate change and other topics. Ben speaks about how robotics is enabling ocean research, the challenges of putting a robot in the ocean, how their robot platform works, and how they are working towards long–term deployments.

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EPISODE LINKS:
– MBARI’s website: https://www.mbari.org/}
– MBARI’s Github: https://github.com/mbari–org}
– LRAUV Simulation Repository: https://github.com/osrf/lrauv}
– Ben’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben–yair–raanan–76330a133/}

PODCAST INFO:
– Podcast website: https://sensethinkact.com}
– Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sense–think–act/id1582090036}
– Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/52wK4oMDvgijRk6E82tC5d}
– RSS: https://sensethinkact.com/itunes.xml}
– Full episodes: https://www.youtube.com/c/SenseThinkActPodcast}
– Clips: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChfnCpNwZzYtZ32J–pZvNDg}

OUTLINE:
– (0:00:00) Start
– (0:01:15) Introducing Ben and MBARI
– (0:06:16) Understanding human impact on the ocean
– (0:17:24) Using robots for scalability
– (0:32:38) Collecting ocean data
– (0:49:19) Describing their ocean robots
– (0:51:49) Power management
– (0:53:52) Varying the buoyancy
– (0:55:57) Their robot’s cost
– (0:58:09) Communicating with the robot
– (1:00:49) Failure management + safety precautions
– (1:05:32) Growing the fleet
– (1:14:06) Simulation with Gazebo + open source
– (1:26:42) Future of missions
– (1:32:12) Advice for those looking to contribute to ocean research

SOCIAL:
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– Discourse: https://discourse.ros.org/c/sensethinkact/71}