An autonomous drone fleet overseen by Ocean Infinity has rediscovered the USS Stewart, the only US Navy destroyer ever captured by Japanese forces during World War II. The marine robotics company's trio of orange, 20-foot-long underwater robots found the historic vessel while mapping what is now the 1,286-square-mile Cordell Bank national marine sanctuary off the California coast. Also known as the "Ghost Ship of the Pacific," the 314-foot-long ship has spent the past 78 years resting roughly 3,500 feet below the ocean's surface, and appears to remain almost completely intact and upright. "This level of preservation is exceptional for a vessel of its age and makes it potentially one of the best-preserved examples of a US Navy'four-piper' destroyer known to exist," Maria Brown, superintendent for both Cordell Bank and Greater Farallones national marine sanctuaries, said in a statement to The New York Times on October 1. The USS Stewart's story is unique in US maritime history, making it one of the most sought-after wrecks for decades.

The maritime and scientific communities have set themselves the ambitious target of 2030 to map Earth's entire ocean floor. You can argue about the numbers but it's in the region of 80% of the global seafloor that's either completely unknown or has had no modern measurement applied to it. The international GEBCO 2030 project was set up to close the data gap and has announced a number of initiatives to get it done. What's clear, however, is that much of this work will have to leverage new technologies or at the very least max the existing ones. Which makes the news from Ocean Infinity - that it's creating a fleet of ocean-going robots - all the more interesting. US-based OI is a relatively new exploration and survey company.

A fleet of 11 uncrewed vessels will traverse the world's oceans over the next ten years in a bid to map the sea floor. The bottom of the world's oceans remains a mystery, with around 80 per cent either poorly imaged or not visualised at all. Ocean Infinity launched in 2016 and has pledged its support to an international collaboration to try and map every inch of the ocean floor within the next decade. It has also attempted to use its technology to try and locate the missing Malaysian Airlines MH370 flight that tragically went missing with 239 people on board nearly six years ago. It has announced it has bought a fleet of 11 uncrewed vessels will traverse the world's oceans over the next ten years in a bid to map the sea floor Uncrewed Surface Vessels (USV) are the latest technology which open up the possibility for long-term marine missions. They have no humans on board and are controlled by computers via a satellite link and a central computer base.

The Stellar Daisy, a massive South Korean tanker that sank in March 2017, was spotted on the floor of the South Atlantic Ocean nearly two years later, the CEO of an ocean exploration company revealed Sunday. This discovery could shed new light on exactly what caused the vessel to tilt and sink and provide some closure to the families of the 22 crew members who died. "We are pleased to report that we have located Stellar Daisy, in particular for our client, the South Korean Government, but also for the families of those who lost loved ones in this tragedy," Ocean Infinity CEO Oliver Plunkett said. "Through the deployment of multiple state of the art (autonomous underwater vehicles), we are covering the seabed with unprecedented speed and accuracy." The Stellar Daisy sank on March 31, 2017, nearly 2,500 miles east of Uruguay, while transporting iron ore from Brazil to China.

A scientific expedition in the Antarctic has set out on a quest to find Sir Ernest Shackleton's lost ship. The team has spent the past two weeks investigating the Larsen C Ice Shelf and the continent's biggest iceberg, known as A68. And this puts it just a few hundred km from the last recorded position of the famous British explorer's vessel, the Endurance. The polar steam-yacht was crushed in sea-ice and sank in November 1915. Shackleton's extraordinary escape from this loss, saving his crew, means there is considerable interest in finding the wreck.

Kraken Robotics, Inc. (OTCQB: KRKNF) (TSXV: PNG) is engaged as a marine technology company that develops underwater robotic systems and software-centric sensors. Shares of the underwater robotics company are rallying 35%, through early trading on Wednesday, June 20, 2018. Over the past month, Kraken Robotics, Inc. has seen average daily volume of 78,235 shares. However, volume of 155,625 shares or dollar volume of $24,121, has already exchanged hands on the day. Shares of Kraken Robotics, Inc. are climbing today after the company announced that it has received a non-brokered private placement offering with Ocean Infinity, Ltd., an offshore ocean survey and ocean exploration company.

The renewed search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 entered its next phase as the initial search of 3,160 sq. Texas-based Ocean Infinity -- which has signed a "no cure, no fee" deal with the Malaysian government to find the jetliner -- is scouring a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean, where the ill-fated plane is believed to have gone down. The second leg of the search includes scouring through an area of the 9,652 sq. According to a report, citing an update posted Tuesday by Malaysia's MH370 Response Team, Ocean Infinity's search ship, the Seabed Constructor, was able to launch all eight of its autonomous underwater vehicles following favorable weather conditions. Earlier, the search operation was hampered due to bad weather.

A U.S. company will be deploying the world's most advanced undersea search vessels in a renewed bid to search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which went missing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board. Texas-based Ocean Infinity -- which has signed a "no cure, no fee" deal with the Malaysian government to find the jetliner -- will for the first time use a swarm of eight drone-like autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to scour a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean, where the ill-fated plane is believed to have gone down. The company will be paid only if it succeeds in locating the plane, which is believed to have gone down while on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. According to the Daily Beast, Ocean Infinity will conduct the new search with the latest technology north of the original search area, where an underwater operation for more than three years yielded no concrete clues. Talking about the technology that the company will use, the Daily Beast reported that the system was being used for the first time and that while en route from the Caribbean to the search site, the command ship, Seabed Constructor, paused several times to carry out trials at depths similar to those at the Indian Ocean search site.