This robot can conduct research in previously unexplored parts of the sea

At first, PLUMES will choose paths that randomly explore the environment. Each sample, however, provides new information about the targeted values in the surrounding environment -- such as spots with highest concentrations of chemicals or shallowest depths. The Gaussian process model exploits that data to narrow down possible paths the robot can follow from its given position to sample from locations with even higher value. PLUMES uses a novel objective function -- commonly used in machine-learning to maximize a reward -- to make the call of whether the robot should exploit past knowledge or explore the new area.