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It’s not often that an underwater vehicle draws the interest of an artist or photographer, but such is the case with this photo. This pic — snapped by Robert Howshall and Ben Sheppard, undergrads in the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge — took top honors in a Nokia Photography Competition recently held at the University.

The center of attention here is “Pebble”, a deep-sea underwater vessel designed and built by a team of students to take pictures of the briny deep. Pebble was assembled for an economical £1800 (about $3000 USD), and was deployed earlier in 2009 off the NW coast of the Isle of Lewis. According to the Project Pebble website, the vehicle was unfortunately swept up by a passing fishing vessel and lost at sea.

Here’s an excerpt from the Project Pebble website that describes the project in more detail:

In 2009 a small team at Cambridge University Engineering Department designed, built and deployed a deep-sea photographic vessel. The vessel, called “Pebble”, cost £1800 to build, making it tens of tens less expensive than commercially available systems. It is hoped that subsequent years to engineering undergraduates will develop and improve the design, to make deep-sea photography more affordable than ever before.

Sure, it’s not technically a robotic vehicle, but we can’t let such an engaging combination of art and engineering go unnoticed. You can check out more stunning photos from the competition by visiting the Nokia Photography Competition photo gallery.

(Photo: Robert Howshall / Ben Sheppard, Cambridge University, Nokia)

According to a news release over at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), a vessel (loaded with a few robotic submersibles) will soon be headed to the Arctic to search for signs of life on what WHOI dubs “…the seafloor of the world’s most isolated ocean.” The Swedish icebreaker Oden will serve as the transportation for a 30-member research team and a trio of new autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) developed for the mission: the Jaguar (pictured), the Puma and the CAMPER.

The 40-day mission — officially called the Arctic Gakkel Vents Expedition (AGAVE) begins on July 1st. One wonders if the WHOI folks anticipated a mission acronym that reminds people of tequila (which is created from the fermented sap of a blue agave plant) more than deep-water hydrothermal vent research, but I digress.

The Chief Scientist of the mission is WHOI geophysicist Robert Reves-Sohn, who summarized the focus of the mission in this comment from the news release:

“This is an exciting opportunity to explore and study a portion of Earth’s surface that has been largely inaccessible to science,” said Reves-Sohn. “Any biological habitats at hydrothermal vent fields along the Gakkel Ridge have likely evolved in isolation for tens of millions of years. We may have the opportunity to lay eyes on completely new life forms that have been living in the abyss beneath the Arctic ice pack.”

Kidding about the mission acronym aside, this expedition looks like a promising use of robotic technology to help researchers unlock the secrets of life in extreme environments, which could have numerous benefits for robotic exploration in other areas. NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) must agree, as both are contributing significant amounts of funding for the program. (Source: WHOI) – [Jeff James]