We will be able to see robots, which can swim as well as crawl on the seabed, in the near future. An official from the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said that the Seoul administration will support by giving KRW 20 billion to develop the underwater robot. The robot will be able to swim at a speed of 18 meters per second and walk 30 meters per second. The robot will explore the seabed to search for organisms or minerals. On top of that, it is expected it could find sunken ships that humans have hard time to get to.
Dozens of navy soldiers passed away a few weeks ago and the ministry still has a hard time to find some of the missing soldiers. Many people said that it is necessary to have robots, which can do the job instead of humans especially for rescue missions.
Based on this, the development of the robots will be done through two steps. The first step will be done by 2012, which the robots will be able to walk on the seabed at a depth of 200 meters. The second step will be done by 2015 and the robots will be able to go to a depth of six kilometers.
