Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Swimming Drone by Draper & Sprout Studios may just clean up the ocean

A concept design, the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Swimming Drone by Draper & Sprout Studios has big potential. This swimming AUV can actually help clean the ocean by finding and picking up plastic microparticles. In fact, the Draper drone skims the top nine meters of the water’s surface. In doing so, it takes in water and both detects and analyzes plastic particulate matter in the water it collects. It releases any clean water as it moves so it doesn’t slow down until it needs to recharge. And it can do this with the floating hub. This AUV not only finds and cleans up tiny plastics that are invisible to the human eye, but it also helps scientists understand where the pollution comes from. With a gadget like this swimming along, there’s hope for clean oceans again.