Protei: swimming ocean clean-up robots

My friend Guillermo Cerceau, who is interested in the health of oceans, is excited about a new technology project called Protei, being developed under Open Hardware Standard licensing in order to help the world, instead of for profit. Protei are swimming, remote-controlled robots which can be used in the ocean to clean up garbage and chemical spills. Protei’s inventors tell us this about their oil cleaning prototype:

Current oil spill skimming technology could only collect 3% of the DeepWater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The health of workers was exposed to cancerous toxic, the boats were expensive and pollutive to operate, they could not operate in bad weather (hurricane seaon) they could not operate at night or far away.

Protei is a technology currently in development that will provide
– Unmanned, no human exposed to toxic.
– Green and cheap, sailing upwind capturing oil downwind.
– Self-righting, rugged, can operate in hurricane time.
– Semi-autonomous : can swarm continuously and far away.

Protei exceeded their Kickstarter funding goal of $27,500 and now are working on a new prototype to clean up waste discarded in oceans.

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