Key points
- Impossible Metals reviews results from its May 17 Eureka 1 demonstration in Collingwood Harbor, Ontario, where the vehicle picked decorative lava rocks used as nodule analogs on a test bed submerged in the lake.
- The tethered mission achieved an 88% pick success rate with an average of 6.1 seconds per pick attempt; the team says the untethered mission, the company’s first fully tetherless run, scored slightly better.
- Software lead Tristan explains the stereo-camera vision system that maps nodule centroid locations and seafloor distance so the end effector can pick nodules without digging into the sediment.
- All demo-day data, including the mission files and user-interface recordings, has been made publicly available via a shared Google Drive folder referenced in the webinar.
