An experimental underwater robot was tested in Marseille as part of the SEACLEAR project. Its purpose is to clean the seabed of waste that is invisible to the naked eye and usually remains there for years, posing a serious threat to the environment.

The robot is equipped with four grippers capable of lifting up to 250 kg, and built-in sensors help regulate the force so as not to damage glass or plastic. Eight propellers provide underwater movement, while power and control are supplied via a cable, which also allows heavy finds to be lifted to the surface. Artificial intelligence helps the device recognize objects using a camera and sonar, and the project partners have collected more than 7,000 images of debris to train the system.

SEACLEAR is being built as an entire ecosystem of robots: unmanned vessels create a map of the seabed, search devices pinpoint the location of waste, and gripping mechanisms extract it. This approach promises to turn marine debris cleanup into a fully autonomous process. In the future, such fleets will be able to clean coastal waters without human intervention, systematically solving the problem of pollution