Russian Underwater Robot Named Piligrim. It can see and hear

Rescuers of the Russian Emergency Situations Mministry are now equipped with a unique sea apparatus, named Pilgrim. Loaded with electronic multi-functional devices, the new robot can “see” and “hear”, that is, it can make audio and video films at a depth of up to 3,000 metres over a 20- hour period even during a severe storm.  

The Pilgrim underwater apparatus will be of great help to the rescuers surveying a seabed for potentially dangerous objects, including mines and torpedoes. About 16,000 of these are to be found underwater in Russia’s territorial waters. “Using the Pilgrim apparatus, we’ll be able to clear the mines of a sunken German barge at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, dating back to the Second World War times. There’re about 15,000 there”, the Chief Specialist with the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry Oleg Kuznetsov says.        

Although the “Pilgrim” will be based in Moscow, it can be easily transported disassembled by an airliner to any part of the world, where there’s need for it”.

Created specially for the Emergency Situations Ministry, at first sight, the Pilgrim device resembles a small torpedo, about 2.5 metres long, weighing 300 kilogrammes. The scientists of the Institute of Marine Technology Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences worked on the miniature high-tech submarine for 2 years.

There were many young people among the developers, including the world champions in robotics. At the international competitions on the Hawaiian Islands this year they surpassed the best world teams, including their compatriots from the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, which is regarded as the leading technical institute in Russia. The robot winner, assembled by the young Far Eastern scientists for 6 months, was also meant for underwater research.

The Pilgrim apparatus proved to be much better than its foreign analogs, which are inferior to it in technical characteristics. Besides, the Russian deep-water apparatus is cheap: it costs about 1 million roubles (approximately 33,000 dollars), which is much less than similar English and Norwegian robotic devices. The Pilgrim apparatus consists only of Russian parts, and all of them, except the two devices, are made at the institute’s laboratories and workshops.

The Pilgrim’s ability to carry out a detailed examination of any objects underwater makes it indispensable during rescue operations and also during operations to spot sunken ships. Besides, the intellectual robotic device can be used for prospecting for underwater deposits of minerals – thus, it will be of great help for oil and gas workers. 

The Pilgrim has become the 24th underwater apparatus, created by the Institute of Marine Technology Problems. The most famous of its predecessors is the Klavesin-1P submersible craft, which proved good in the Arctic Ocean, where foreign equipment could not withstand Arctic conditions. And it is exactly the underwater robot Klavesin-1P that proved helpful in obtaining proof that the Arctic shelf belongs to Russia.  This underwater musical instrument is also adopted by the Russian Defence Ministry.