This Mer-Bot Can Swim, Grab Stuff, and Looks Like the Jason of the Deep

(lively music)

[Voiceover] This is Ocean One, a new humanoid robot

from Stanford University.

It can swim, it can manipulate objects,

it can float right into your nightmares.

I mean, the thing looks ridiculous.

The human body's optimized for life on land,

so why would you want to build a humanoid robot

for the ocean?

It's a good question, and one at the very heart

of modern robotics.

The idea is that by mimicking a human,

the robot is that much easier for an operator to pilot.

It's essentially an extension of his or her body.

These intuitive controls use haptic feedback,

so the operator can actually feel through the robot.

Building humanoid robots makes even more sense

when you're working with environments made for humans

like these not at all terrifying machines

at the DARPA Robotics Challenge.

At the moment the bots look like they're on drugs, sure,

but with time that'll change.

Still, the ocean is an environment

where humans quite frankly don't belong

so scientists are starting to deploy

autonomous aquatic robots

that don't require human operation

and that look nothing like humans.

What the Ocean One mermaid is clearly good at though

is manipulation, and that's a gigantic problem

in robotics right now.

Robots are consistent and strong

but they can't manipulate worth a damn.

Ocean One may look, well, unsettling

but I for one would be willing to shake its hand.

(lively music)