The world’s oceans, lakes and rivers are under mounting pressure from climate change, growing demand, urbanization, and pollution, threatening their ability to sustain life.
Without better data to understand the health of increasingly stressed waterways, the fight to save these most precious of resources will be ineffective, says Simeon Pieterkosky, co-founder of the technology company Aquaai. “Virtually every waterway is polluted to an extent where the ecosystem just can’t balance back anymore,” he explains.
Aquaai is aiming to fill that information gap using fishlike drones that collect data from underwater environments. Powered by batteries, they are designed to look and swim like fish, with a body and tail that swish from side-to-side as they cruise through the water. With their orange, white, and black neoprene skin, they resemble the clownfish star of the 2003 hit movie “Finding Nemo.”
The standard version is about 4 feet long (1.3 meters) and weighs 65 pounds (30 kilograms) and can be equipped with cameras and sensors to measure metrics like oxygen, salinity and pH levels.
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