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Oussama Khatib: What if Aquaman were a robot?

It’s hard enough for a robot to work at sea level; try making one that swims nearly a thousand meters below the surface.
Photo of underwater robot OceanOneK exploring an underwater plane wreck.
OceanOneK explores an underwater plane wreck. |Image by Frederic Osada/DRASSM/Stanford

On this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything podcast, robotics expert Oussama Khatib takes us on a deep dive into the vagaries of creating robots that swim.

His most recent project is OceanOneK, a 200-pound, humanoid robot with stereoscopic vision and opposable thumbs that can travel nearly a thousand meters below the surface. When the pressure was on, Khatib had to redesign everything he thought he knew about robots, he says, beginning with a new glass-like shell good to 6,000 PSI.

Listen as Khatib and host Russ Altman plumb the depths of underwater robots on this installment of The Future of Everything.

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