1898 – Diving Apparatus Patent – James E Holland (American)

1898 – Diving Apparatus Patent by James E Holland. Publication number US638335 A Publication type Grant Publication date Dec 5, 1899 Filing date Dec 20, 1898 Priority date Dec 20, 1898   Inventors James E Holland Original Assignee Anton Lutz, James E Holland My invention relates to diving apparatus, and has special reference to such …

1964 – Marine Mammals and Ordnance Recovery (American)

1964 onwards – Marine Mammals and Ordnance Recovery Ahab, a 5,500 pound killer whale, recovers a piece of inert ordnance using an acoustic pinger to guide him during the Deep Ops project. The whale is also equipped with a grabber device and a hydrazine system to allow the object to float easily to the surface. …

Early Fictional Underwater Robots and Underwater Manipulators

1907 – LE TRESOR DANS L'ABIME "LE TRESOR DANS L'ABIME" par Jean de LA HIRE –  Edition ORIGINALE datée de 1907 1907 – "Le Fulgur" « Le Fulgur » – « Le Fulgur » Publication en épisode dans la revue « Le Globe Trotter » du Jeudi 21 Mars 1907, N° 268 au Jeudi 15 …

1985 – “Aquarobot” Aquatic walking robot – (Japanese)

An early Artist's conception from the late 1970's. Source: Robots: Fact, Fiction, and Prediction by Jasia Reichardt, 1978. Source: Field Test of Aquatic Walking Robot for Underwater Inspection Junichi Akizono, Senior Research Engineer Mineo Iwasaki, Chief of Robotics Laboratory Takashi Nemoto, Member of Robotics Laboratory Osamu Asakura, Member of Robotics Laboratory – Machinery Division Port …

1984-93 – Undersea Robot Concept – ART Project (Japanese)

The ART Project’s Nuclear Inspection Centaur Robot After the earthquake last year and the resulting damage to the Fukushima nuclear plant, observers criticized Japan’s lack of preparedness. In particular, many felt that the Japanese robotics sector’s focus on expensive humanoids had squandered time and resources better spent on more specialized robots.  However, this isn’t totally …