Divers are often put at considerable risk when searching for people or objects underwater. The ETH spin-​off Tethys has developed an underwater robot that can be used in situations that are too dangerous for human divers.

The Tethys robot is an autonomous underwater vehicle that has been specially developed for use in challenging and dangerous environments like turbid channels and rivers. It is primarily used in situations when it is too difficult or risky to use conventional search and rescue techniques. Equipped with acoustic sensors and cameras, the robot can search large areas underwater completely autonomously and quickly localise objects or people. This means that divers and rescue teams no longer have to risk working in dangerous situations. Check out the full article published by ETH Zurich: Diving robot for dangerous operations | ETH Zurich and video: https://youtu.be/APOamIAcFr8

We are very grateful that we were allowed to be here in this great modern office of Buero Zueri in the Switzerland Innovation Park Zurich. For a whole year we had the opportunity to grow in this fantastic space with further education and many helpful discussions within the local startup community. Now, we have given the spirit of the office to the new start ups which will move in for this year.

Thank you all!

Our robots are designed to fill a gap in the market. Most of our competitors‘ robots are mainly built for offshore applications. We focus in particular on inland waters and rivers. The handy size of our robots is unique. Read more on the website of the magazine: Alles Roboter oder was? | marina.ch

We finally got the amazing news that Jonas and Pragash, two key members of our team, were accepted into the ETH Pioneer Fellowship program. Over the course of a year, they will be supported through training programs to take Tethys Robotics another step closer to commercialization.

The regional TV sender featured us in their Series about the Innovation Park Zurich. In our episode, we are introducing our technologies and the office space in Dübendorf. It was a great opportunity to show our Proteus22 in action and make the people aware of the problems we are trying to tackle.

Tethys Robotics took part in the RobotX event of the ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich. This event takes place at the Swiss Innovation Day to invite researchers, industry partners and students to showcase the current state of the art of robotics research in Zurich.

As part of the Autonomous Systems Lab under Professor Roland Siegwart, we were invited to showcase the Underwater Research state of our project and had our own boot at the exhibition. It was a great opportunity to get feedback from renowned roboticists and discuss ideas and solutions that could be translated from aerial drones to our underwater drones.

On the 11. June of 2022, the Innovation Park Zurich (IPZ) organized the first Innovatica event. More than 2’000 people came to visit the +50 exhibitors that opened their doors. We also took part as exhibitors and were able to present our Proteus to a wider audience as well as being able to steer it.

After two years of collaborative development with the Command Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Demining (EOD) team, Tethys Robotics was able to deliver the first prototype to the Swiss Armed Forces. By handing over the robot Proteus, they can further test the robustness, reliability and deployability of the system.

For a more detailed description of the development and the handover, please visit the official report of the Swiss Army on the following webpage.

On the innovation day of 2022, a delegation consisting among others of the Government Councillor Carmen Walker Späh, the Government Councillor Christian Vitta and the President of the Swiss Confederation Ignazio Cassis visited the Innovation Park Zurich as well as our office at Büro Zürich. Here we had the chance to present our project and goals for the future.

The Master Thesis of Jonas Wüst tackles the underwater localization problem by combining the technology of multiple positioning sensors like DVL, Underwater GPS and AHRS with a state of the art sensor fusion algorithm called GTSAM. The goal is to increase the accuracy, precision and stability of underwater localization while keeping the flexibility and maneuverability of the system high. This step brings the robots of Tethys Robotics closer to autonomy as well as to mapping the environment. If you are interested in this topic, please do not hesitate in contacting us.

After one year of testing, the main UUV of Tethys Robotics gets a redesign to be ready for the next level. The main improvements concern the manoeuvrability and stability in the water while still being able to add further sensors and tools. Proteus will now be even more agile, robust and faster than before.

Check out our newest article published by Robohub. Robohub is a non-profit online communication platform that brings together experts in robotics research, start-ups, business, and education from across the globe. We are very excited to be featured on this platform.

The ETH Ambassador blog has published a report on the journey of Tethys Robotics. It tells our story from the first idea till now and gives also some insights into the future.

Tethys Robotics came back to Lake Thun, but this time at sunrise. The team arrived at 4:00 to make the Proteus ready to dive at 4:15 to witness the sunrise at 4:30. This early in the morning, the lake is very calm and silent. Only fishes bring movement to the water surface. Perfect circumstances to explore new places which would otherwise be crowded by boats, fishers or other people.

After some further development, Tethys Robotics had the opportunity to test the Proteus with the Swiss Military EOD team. The tests took place in Lake Thun where the EOD team already has some operations. The goal of the tests was to find the further features needed in Proteus to make the support for the EOD team more efficient. Furthermore, the localization system was tested in a real-world environment for the first time. The idea is to develop a sensor-fusion algorithm to combine our sensors and increase the accuracy of the robot’s positioning.

We did it! Tethys Robotics won one of the five spots in the newly renovated Büro Züri office. The office is located at the Innovation Park in Zurich where a lot of other Startups and innovative projects are encountered. This office will be available for free over the period of one year till the next batch of innovative Startups takes over the place.

In recent years, underwater photogrammetry has been introduced and even implementations of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) have been used to explore the underwater environment. Johannes Lienhart tackles the challenge of implementing underwater photogrammetry for use in Swiss lakes. Possible use cases of such a setup are the inspection of underwater structures and the investigation of the sedimentation process of the lake bottom. The project addresses the challenges associated with an underwater photogrammetry setup, particularly the poor visibility in Swiss lakes compared to other studies in marine environments. The main part of the project is dedicated to building the hardware, testing its basic functionality and interfacing it with the UUV Proteus from Tethys Robotics.

Happily presenting our newest diving robot: Proteus. Named after a greek sea god.

Proteus is a totally redesigned underwater drone and allows us to reach new depths, see the underwater world in great detail even if it is dark and turbid. It is developed to easily mount sensor suites, transmit data at high speeds, and a lot more.

Bastian Schildknecht tackles the problem of 3D reconstruction of underwater environments by constructing point clouds from sonar images. Having access to accurate maps can often be crucial for many underwater operations. For that reason, a feature-based method for the estimation of landmark positions in 3D coordinates was built. This is done by feature extraction and feature matching on sonar images in order to acquire landmarks. These landmarks then get registered and integrated into the 3D reconstruction by using a novel iterative optimization method for estimating the landmark positions. To verify the performance of the reconstruction method, the self-developed sonar simulator with a synthetic data set is used.