Doctoral students at Stevens Institute of Technology hope the robot they're developing will be able to dive into waters and perform tasks that could be very dangerous for humans. "We would like the robot to be able to do infrastructure inspections, ideally to assess the integrity of underwater infrastructure, make sure everything is intact, working properly, that there are no damages or defects. Or potentially from a security standpoint, that there are no anomalies planted on an underwater piece of infrastructure," said Dr. Brendan Englot, professor of mechanical engineering. To do this, the robot must be able to understand its location in the water and be able to accurately find the structures it needs to assess. Through a process called machine learning, the robot gathers data and improves its own performance.