A top-secret submarine prototype has been identified on Google Maps images by sharp-eyed users who spotted its futuristic design and quickly spread the word, the New York Post reported. Photos showing the "Manta Ray" autonomous vessel apparently docked at Port Hueneme naval base in California went viral Sunday as military and aeronautical buffs gawked at the rare glimpses. The submarine is named after the marine creature due to its physical similarity and ability to lurk for extended periods deep underwater. The "Manta Ray" aquatic defense vessel was spotted docked at Port Hueneme on Google Maps. The brainchild of Northrop Grumman, the vessel is part of a wider U.S. Navy project to augment the nation's long-range underwater fleet of unmanned vehicles.

Abstract-- Lighter-than-air vehicles or blimps, are an evolving platform in robotics with several beneficial properties such as energy efficiency, collision resistance, and ability to work in close proximity to human users. While existing blimp designs have mainly used propeller-based propulsion, we focus our attention to an alternate locomotion method, flapping wings. Specifically, this paper introduces a flapping-wing blimp inspired by manta rays, in contrast to existing research on flapping-wing vehicles that draw inspiration from insects or birds. We present the overall design and control scheme of the blimp as well as the analysis on how the wing performs. The effects of wing shape and flapping characteristics on the thrust generation are studied experimentally. We also demonstrate that the flapping-wing blimp has a significant range advantage over a propeller-based system.

Researchers in Singapore have built an underwater robot that looks and swims like a manta ray, using only single motors and flexible fins to propel it through water in a manner uncannily like its biological cousin. It's not the first of its kind - academics have spent years trying to mimic the wing-like movements of rays' pectoral fins - but Chew Chee Meng of the National University of Singapore says it's the first to use single motors for each fin and rely on the interplay of fluid and fin. One of nature's most efficient and graceful swimmers, manta rays have long fascinated scientists with a unique propulsion method to cruise through even turbulent seas, flapping their pectoral fins effortlessly to drive water backwards. The MandaDroid is designed after a juvenile manta ray. It measures 35 centimetres (13.8 inches) long, 63 centimetres wide (25 inches), and weighs just .7 kilograms (1.5 lbs).

It's not the first of its kind - academics have spent years trying to mimic the wing-like movements of rays' pectoral fins - but Chew Chee Meng of the National University of Singapore says it's the first to use single motors for each fin and rely on the interplay of fluid and fin.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next two months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. With a title like "What's new, Atlas?" for a video like this, you know that Boston Dynamics is just messing with us now: The game played out on a real set wherein Cozmo would roll through a series of trials, exploring rooms and solving puzzles which tested his ability to move, to place, stack, and turn blocks, and recognize faces and pets, testing Reddit's collective will to help him. Cozmo's quest: to gather three golden key cubes to be able to escape to Reddit's front page.

Even though these huge fish are 12 feet across, the social behavior of the reef manta ray has generally remained secretive--until now. In rare drone footage captured off the coast of Oahu in Hawaii by Mark Merkley, the unique and graceful feeding behavior of the reef manta ray is captured in great detail. Manta ray individuals "stack" behind one another while feeding. The social groupings of manta rays are intriguing in part because they aren't necessarily family groups.

A new roboray that could survey the oceans coral reefs has been designed by researchers. The bot was modeled after manta rays and is made of transparent silicon parts which are mostly invisible to other marine life. The robot could be used for exploration studies, including examining shipwrecks without damaging them. The robot, designed by researchers based at Zhejiang University in China, can swim at a speed of 6.4 centimeters (2.5 inches) per second, or 0.69 body lengths per second. This is slower than similar sized fish, who typically swim four times faster.

Giant manta rays have been filmed checking out their reflections in a way that suggests they are self-aware. Only a small number of animals, mostly primates, have passed the mirror test, widely used as a tentative test of self-awareness. "This new discovery is incredibly important," says Marc Bekoff, of the University of Colorado in Boulder. "It shows that we really need to expand the range of animals we study." But not everyone is convinced that the new study proves conclusively that manta rays, which have the largest brains of any fish, can do this – or indeed, that the mirror test itself is an appropriate measure of self-awareness. Csilla Ari, of the University of South Florida in Tampa, filmed two giant manta rays in a tank, with and without a mirror inside.The fish changed their behaviour in a way that suggested that they recognised the reflections as themselves as opposed to another manta ray.