研究プラットフォーム運用部門
Institute for Marine-Earth Exploration and Engineering (MarE3)

Team KUROSHIO won the Jury’s Special Award in the 9th Robot Award

March 16, 2021

News

Team KUROSHIO won the Jury’s Special Award in the 9th Robot Award.

The Robot Award is co-sponsored by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Japan Machinery Federation, and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. This award is for robots and robot-related business/social implementations, robot application systems, elemental technologies, advanced ICT basic technologies, R&D, and human resource development, which are considered to have high contributions and expectations for future market creation.

The Team KUROSHIO project team scored highly on developing a mothership-less seafloor survey system. The system that conducts seafloor observations using underwater robots, demonstrates that surveys can be conducted without a mother ship and explores areas with no prior experience such as off-coast Greece by creating a detailed seafloor map. Team KUROSHIO won the runner-up prize in the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE.

Awarded title

Development and demonstration of offshore and underwater robot systems that enable mothership-less seafloor surveys.

Team KUROSHIO

The seafloor exploration team include members from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo, Kyushu Institute of Technology, National Institute of Maritime, Port and Aviation Technology, Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding, Nippon Marine Enterprises, KDDI Research and Yamaha Motor.

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