With the Great Barrier Reef Comes Great Responsibility

QUT is working to equip communities with advanced robotic tools that monitor and protect marine environments.

More than 230 senior marine science students and teachers from 19 Queensland schools on Australia’s east coast provided vital insights to enhance the usability of state-of-the-art robots like the COTSbot.

COTSbot identifies and controls the pervasive and devastating Crown of Thorns Starfish (COTS) via a lethal dose of bile salts.

Schools and community volunteers took part in controlled trials using remotely operated vehicles (ROV) to monitor the reef, and wide-reaching surveys throughout 2016–2017.

Researchers collected information about how non-tech savvy community members engaged with advanced robotic tools, to better design and maximise take-up of these technologies.

Students and teachers from 19 schools throughout Queensland, Australia participated in technology trials and surveys to help improve advanced robotic interface designs, to help increase uptake by non-tech savvy users.

Findings informed the user interface design for the QUT-developed RangerBot, a new low-cost, user friendly Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) being developed with $750,000 in funding from the 2016 Google Impact Challenge Australia.

“The kids drove an ROV during the study and gave feedback on how different interfaces were used to control the robot,” said Dr Matt Dunbabin, who co-created the COTSbot and led the study with senior researcher officer, Dr Julia Davies.

“We used the information for the interface design of the RangerBot — which we’re testing now on the Great Barrier Reef.”

The study was supported by donations from QUT alumni, the Dalio Foundation (US$38 000), Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation Eldon and Anne Foote Advised Trust (AU$20 000), and QUT which purchased the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) used in the study.

Dr Matt Dunbabin from QUT led the study on the use of advanced robotics by non-tech savvy users.

Participants most valued interface and hardware features that helped facilitate greater use of the robot, such as:

• Dual capability as a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) for exploration and discovery, and Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) for larger deployments.
• Short training videos and/or interactive tutorials tailored for age groups to induct citizen scientists before commencing activities.
• Data collection guidelines to ensure information is of benefit to the reef, and participants are aware of their contribution.
• Integrated engagement activities to maximise wait time when deployed as an AUV.
• Gamification to encourage long-term interest and continued participation.
• Intuitive controls.
• Real-time results displayed on interfaces.

“Non-tech savvy users might have an idea on how to use technology, but if they don’t feel comfortable using advanced robotic equipment they won’t seek it out or use it to its full potential,” Dr Dunbabin said.

“Through this study we’ve been able to assess the robot features, functionality and user interface we need to build to encourage and excite citizen scientists, schools and teachers to use the technology to save the reef.”

Citizen science refers to public — or non-scientist — collection of information that can be used for scientific purposes.

“Greater usability would lead to greater uptake of technology, empowering citizen scientists,” Dr Matthew Dunbabin said.

“As evidence, students became more aware of the COTS issue during the study, and the interdisciplinary approaches being used to tackle the problem.

“They started to think about how to extend the use of technology into other marine science activities.

“Almost every participating school expressed a desire to expand their teaching and student learning through the integration of robotic technology into their marine science course.

“We want to maximise the use of technology in environmental monitoring programs around the world, so this was an encouraging indication of what we hoped to achieve on a larger scale through citizen science.”

While cost remained a barrier for greater take-up of ROV technology by schools, Dr Dunbabin said he hoped the lower-cost RangerBot would provide more access to the robots.

RangerBot trials commenced in late 2017 and will continue through the first quarter of 2018.

Commercial applications and evaluation by tourism, fisheries, Marine Parks and other interested stakeholders will begin within six months after trials.

Some 200 students, 30 teachers and four members of the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators (AMPTO) took part in the usability study.

About RangerBot

RangerBot is a smaller, lower-cost and more nimble version of QUT-developed COTSbot, a state-of-the-art Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) used to identify COTS and deliver a lethal dose of bile salts.

It is a vision-enabled autonomous underwater vehicle for monitoring a wide range of issues facing coral reefs across the globe.

RangerBot will be designed to stay underwater almost three times longer than a human diver, gather vastly more data, map expansive underwater areas at scales not previously possible, and operate in all conditions and all times of the day or night.

Both RangerBot and COTSbot were designed by QUT roboticists, Drs Matthew Dunbabin and Feras Dayoub.