Bonus Episode: Robotics for Sustainability (ERF 2026)

Engineering & simulation

The team trained algorithms to distinguish between classes of litter and living organisms (animals/plants) by labeling images, enabling the robots to identify what to collect versus what to protect.

“So we do that through machine learning. We trained algorithms to directly distinguish between different classes of liter and we typically just label that to be trash. And other classes like animals or plants so everything that we need to protect down there.”

Engineering & simulation

The project uses AI for automated plankton counting, where a pump collects water, filters it, and the system analyzes the sample in real-time before returning the water to the ocean.

“And then I presented also a couple of examples of automated plankton counting with the AI and a pump that collects water in real time from the ocean, goes through the filter, analyzes that and brings back the water back to the ocean.”