Whether in the sky, on land, or underwater… robots and drones are changing the world. They’re helping us to navigate our environments in new ways,so we can see and explore places like never before.

When a wildfire burns out of control, firefighters must work quickly to safely contain the blaze. Engineers from Carnegie Mellon University have developed a new drone to help firefighters with this challenging job. This drone has been designed to fly through areas covered in smoke.

It’s equipped with a mix of sensors, including infrared cameras and radar, allowing it to ‘see through the smoke’ and effectively map and navigate through affected areas. This information is immediately communicated to firefighters, helping them to understand the speed and direction that the fire is moving.

The drone can also generate digital smoke-free images of structures in the fire’s path. This helps firefighters figure out the best way to save them. These drones are still in development, but engineers hope they will help firefighters find the best strategy to contain wildfires.

GPS has made it easier for blind and vision-impaired people to independently navigate the outdoors. However, GPS doesn’t work well indoors. That’s one of the reasons why engineers from the University of Glasgow in the UK have designed a new robot guide dog.

The four-legged robot is fitted with a range of sensors to assist in navigating indoor spaces. The sensors can scan the local environment and create a map of the area, including objects and obstacles. The robot uses this information to find the best path through a space,
guiding a human alongside it. The engineers hope that the robot guide dog will be able to support some of the 2.2 billion people around the world who live with sight loss.

Hydrus
This is Hydrus, a new drone that can dive into the depths of the ocean. It was designed by Australian-based company, Advanced Navigation. Hydrus has a range of cameras that can survey and map parts of the ocean floor. While this work can be performed by humans, diving deeper than 40 meters is incredibly challenging. Hydrus, however, can go down much deeper—up to 3,000 meters!

The drone can also explore places that are too dangerous for humans, such as areas with sharks and crocodiles. Hydrus has already been used to film a shipwreck on the ocean floor, and now it’s being used to study coral reefs off the coast of Australia, tracking changes over time. This will help scientists understand how coral reefs respond to threats like climate change.

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